Slow Down Time!

Time seems to be going so fast these days. Mainly it's because I've had so much to think about lately. Sadly, all these thoughts have really distracted me from the dual task I have here, learning language and developing relationships with nationals. It's really made me very tired spiritually and emotionally. I really need a pick me up.

So I turned to Philemon and read it. It's such a nice little letter. Paul begging Philemon to accept Onesimus as a brother, not just as a slave. There's no one verse that really jumps out to me. I didn't find some great spiritual truth that I had overlooked for years. It was just a refreshing little read. It's written with such a gentle tone. Paul says that he is "pleading" with Philemon in the letter and you can feel it when you read what he had to say. Paul cared for this guy and for all the people he worked with. I need that same love for the people I work with here.

Another thought, while I'm at it, is about time. It's a C.S. Lewis quote from a book called A Severe Mercy.

"And now, another point on wishes. A wish may lead to false beliefs, granted. But what does the existence of the wish suggest? At one time I was much impressed by Arnold's line 'Nor does the being hungry prove that we have bread.' But surely, tho' it doesn't prove that one particular man will get food, it does prove that there is such a thing as food! i.e. if we were a species that didn't normally eat, weren't designed to eat, would we feel hungry? You say the materialist universe is 'ugly.' I wonder how you discovered that! If you are really a product of a materialistic universe, how is it you don't feel at home there? Do fish complain of the sea for being wet? Or if they did, would that fact itself not strongly suggest that they had not always bee, or would not always be, purely aquatic creatures? Notice how we are perpetually surprised at Time. ('How time flies! Fancy John being grown-up and married! I can hardly believe it!') In heaven's name why? Unless, indeed, there is something in us which is not temporal."

Put that in your pipe and smoke it! (Assuming your company allows such things.) I know I belong somewhere else. I know this is not my home. And as a friend of mine once said, "I can't wait to get to heaven and just kick it with Jesus." Amen.

It's here...

I just have a minute, but I thought I'd tell you guys about our new neighbor... BURGER KING!!! Yes, there are a couple other ones in town, but they're all FAR from my house. But today was the grand opening of the one almost DIRECTLY ACROSS THE STREET! Get behind me Satan! I couldn't let the grand opening go by without stopping in, so me and the Boss met there for lunch. Yes, it tastes just like it does in America. Praise God.

But before you go freaking out because I'm "eating unhealthy" (which I do anyways, without Burger King), you'll be glad to know that I did go to the gym today. And if that doesn't satisfy you, at least I only ate there once today. The Boss is going back for dinner! Ha!

Alright, I think my little heater has sufficiently warmed the bathroom, so I'm going to go take my icy shower and pray that it doesn't cause my cough to turn into full blown pneumonia.

Totally Wasted Day

Saturdays are usually my "days off." It's hard to really call any day a "day on" since my usual routine consists of sitting around talking and drinking tea for hours with some language study sprinkled in for good measure. But I try to take a little break on Saturdays for myself, since even my "Sabbath" is hard work (you try deciphering a sermon that's preached in Turkish!).

So that's how I justify not doing much on Saturdays. But honestly, I still feel like I should do something, at some point, even on a Saturday. So I made up my mind that since it was raining, windy, and COOOOOLD today, that I would just hang out in the house for a while during the day and then spend a little time meeting people in the gym before going to talk to the movie rental guy that has been wanting me to sit and visit for a while. The plan was working to perfection. It rained most the day and I stayed dry. I got in two Piper sermons, one being an hour and a half biography of William Cooper. I did some reading and some writing. And I was able to catch my best friend bored at work, resulting in a nice conversation about all the latest happenings in life. It was perfectly relaxing and refreshing. The rain stopped, and the clock clicked over to 5 PM, and it was time for phase two of the plan, to put my muscles and my mouth to work.

So I got changed into my fabulous workout clothes and headed to the gym. But to my surprise, the lights were off and the padlock was on the door. I knew they closed a little earlier on Saturdays, but I didn't know it was that early! That's what I get for not reading the signs well. But, no problem, that just gives me more time to sit with the film guy, Spielberg. I'm really excited about this Spielberg fella for a couple reasons. First of all, he knows that my roommate and I are both Christians, and yet continues to insist that we meet. And secondly, he teaches Turkish in school. So it gives me hope that not only can he be a valuable resource in language learning, but that he may be seeking something deeper as well. So I come home and change into more 21st century looking clothes and head to the movie store. But as I turn the corner onto their street I'm confronted with total blackness. Every building I could see looking west was blacked out, including the movie store. I looked inside and one of his workers was there sitting in the candlelight, but said that the boss had gone home already. Well poop!

But all hope wasn't lost. I could still talk to people at the grocery store, since everybody there knows my name now. I was going to buy some healthy food for dinner, have some good conversation, then come home and make myself a wholesome dinner. One out of three ain't bad. I did get to talk to a couple people for a pretty good while. Pretty much everybody that works there knows my name, since I'm the only white man that comes in and because I try my best to practice my Turkish when I'm there. So I got to talk to two different guys for a good amount of time, even with one of my new grammar rules thrown in! But unfortunately, my "healthy food" commitment fell by the waist side. First I gave in to the temptation to buy a Coke. Next I saw that they had the chocolate pudding on sale. And finally, the real dagger into the heart of my healthy living plan, was the sight of M&Ms. This is the first time I've seen them for sale in a store in this country. So, naturally, I bought a bag. I'm already through half the Coke and am about to crack open the M&Ms. I've totally blown this day in just about every sense and it's still only 7 PM. Sad.

Quick Mid-day Post

I haven't been online much during the days lately, but I needed some time to calm my shaking hands today. It's a miracle that I'm alive to write this at all, and I say that only half-jokingly.

This morning my roommate had to appear in court to testify against the kids we nabbed trying to rob a car a while back (see Sun. Nov. 5th post for background info). We went downtown and found the court. After standing around for a while, my roommate realized that he didn't bring the subpeona thing he had and therefore, we had to go back home to get it. That's where life got interesting for us all and almost came to an end on multiple occassions.

My roommate is not a good driver. In fact, he's pretty awful. This isn't just my opinion either. In what was almost some eery foreshadowing, the other guy who came to the court with us, Herman, called my roommate's car a "casket" as we were getting out of it at the court house. I mean, it was just two weeks ago when he backed into an apartment building doing a good five miles per hour in an effort to park. He's also side-swiped the curb trying to pull into our apartment building's parking lot, backed into a nice Volkswagen in the hospital parking lot, and, as he told me this morning, after stalling at a red light, allowed his car to roll back into another car as he was trying to start it back up again. Luckily for us all, these small accidents have caused no physical harm to anyone and only minimal damage to his car, other people's cars, and the various stationary objects that he has managed to strike.

There are a multitude of reasons for why my roommate is a bad driver. A few of them are: awful hand eye coordination, inability to do more than one thing at a time (ex. steer and shift gears, steer and press the gas, steer while in reverse, etc.), lack of muscle control (he slams on the brakes and stomps on the gas, there's nothing gradual about either), ignorance of steering dynamics, friction, or the general laws of physics, either a decreased field of vision or the complete loss of sight in one eye, a tendency to overreact, and poor decision making. That's a short list, but you get the idea.

So when you take all this into account, I hope you can get a good feel of the peril I was in. Because not only do you have all of the above in play here, but you also have to consider the fact that my roommate is scared (believing that these kids work for some mophia crime boss who pays them to steal phones and thus will pay someone to stab my roommate on the witness stand, and if you think I'm making that up, first take into account that he asked TWO of us to go with him, and if you still don't believe me, you can call my roommate and ask him yourself, he speaks English) and he's rushed (since it wasn't until he was called to court that he realized that he just might need the official document that summoned him there to begin with). So we went flying down the road doing well over the posted speed limit. Twice we fish tailed. TWICE! And listen, these roads aren't snow covered. There is no black ice on the bridges. It hasn't even rained here in a couple weeks. We're talking about completely dry roads at ten in the morning on a rather warm day and we're in a tank of a vehicle. How he got it to fish tail is beyond me, but to do it twice, and neither time purposefully, is quite a feat. The only thing that surpasses that in greatness is the fact that both times we regained control despite all the odds against us. We were flying both times, my roommate is a horrible driver (see above paragraph), and we were in a car not known for it's handling, braking, looks, gas mileage, well, not known for anything really. But somehow, only by the very hand of God I assume, we safely made the trip from court to house and back to court without any injury to us.

Unfortunately, the guy walking across the street in front of us wasn't so lucky. We had made it to the house and all the way back to the court, surviving both fish tail experiences, and were making the final turn into the street where we wanted to park when my roommate really fouled up. He was making a sharp left turn and was watching some mopeds parked on the corner. I had just said, "Take it slow," when we hit the guy. Luckily, the guy was walking away from us and we just clipped one of his legs with the bumper. It didn't knock him over, which, again, was lucky, because he was an older, frail looking gentleman. But as old and frail as his body looked, his mouth was young and full of spunk. He let into my roommate pretty hard through the window and my roommate did his best to look sorry even though he admitted to being more worried about hitting the mopeds. Classy.

Needless to say, I took the bus home. I got something to eat, studied some new grammar rules (thanks Caesar), and am finally calm enough to venture back out into the world again. It's off to the gym first, and then, after that, I may go try to find someone to practice these new grammar rules on. But you can rest assured, wherever I go, I will be watching for that flying casket on wheels!

Ah, the Turkish bath!

Just sitting here thinking about it makes me feel more relaxed, happier, and sweatier...



So here's the run down on how this whole Turkish bath thing works. We showed up and paid our dues. They gave us each a key for a little locker off to the side. There, we undressed. I think going nude was an option, but the three of us opted to keep the boxers. Then, you grab yourself a pair of the house slippers to wear and a little cloth thing to wrap around your waste, and it's off you go.

Once inside, you have a wide range of things to choose from, but I think what we did was pretty typical. The room is large, with a high, domed ceiling, with the light being provided by small holes in the dome of the ceiling. The method of lighting the room gives it a strange ambience. In the middle of the room is a large octagonal rock. The room is very hot and humid. We went it and sat around on the large rock in the middle to start with. Not only is the room hot, but we found out very quickly that the big rock is hot too! But, we unwrapped the cloth from around our wastes, used it as a little blanket, and got comfortable on the rock. You just sit or lay there and sweat, allowing your muscles to relax and unwind. After being in for a while, an old man started calling us over one by one to a wooden plank on one side of the rock. There he would put a mitten thing on his hand and rub your whole body. And when I say "whole body," I mean your WHOLE body. From there I was directed to a man sitting by a fountain with a big bucket. There were these fountains spaced around the big room at intervals. They had a hot and a cold water faucet with a large marble sink to catch the water in. At this one, the man had a seperate bucket of suds. Here he washed my hair for me. He did a great job, it was the best scalp rub, and maybe the only scalp rub, I have ever had. Once he had rinsed me out, he pulled this huge sponge thing out of his bucket. It was scratchier than a normal sponge and was roughly the size of my entire back. He used it to wash my back, my chest and stomach, then my legs and arms. After a good rinse, I was free to roam the hot room again. So I started to look around and noticed that there were four rooms that you could go into from the big room. Three of the rooms were private bath rooms where people would go to continue washing themselves at a fountain. But the fourth room had a sign next to it that said "Sauna." Seeing as how I was already sweating profusely, I didn't see that going into a sauna would be much different, but I went in anyways. The room was small and very dimly light. They used the same lighting system as the big room, with just some small holes in a small dome over the center of the room, but the plexiglass that covered the holes was almost black from the charcoal heaters that kept the room warm. And boy did they keep it warm! It was oppressive heat. One of the guys that came with me couldn't stay in the room because he couldn't breath with the air so hot. I had to labor to breath myself, but it felt great. I sat in there for a while and then went out to a fountain to wash off with some luke warm water. I started to wander again and found that in the "in between" room, between the lobby and the big room, was a small pool full of ice cold water. I went back into the big room and told the other guys about it. We tried to acclimate ourselves a little by pouring some luke warm water over us but when the time came, nothing had us prepared. To say it took your breath away would be an understatement. If my body temperature hadn't already been thirty degrees above normal, my heart may have just stopped right then. But as hot as I had been for the past hour and a half, it only took five minutes in that pool to return to normal. But as shocking as it was, it really felt good. We went back out into the lobby, dried off, and changed back into our street clothes. We sat around and had a drink (I tried carrot juice for the first time and was not impressed) before venturing back out into the real world.

When I walked out of that building, I felt like a new man. It was the cleanest I had felt in years! (No showering jokes needed.) One of my buddies said he was having trouble walking his leg muscles were so relaxed and loose. It was awesome. With the cold weather set in for another month or so, I hope to make at least one more visit to the place this winter. I don't know if it'll be quite as refreshing in the middle of July. But all in all, it was one of the most relaxing and refreshing experiences of my life. If you have a chance, definitely check out your local Turkish bath. (And if you're wondering if it's really a "Turkish" bath that you've wandered into, just look to see if your masseuse is dark skinned and has a hairy back. If so, it's genuine!)

In other news, I am almost completely over my little cold. I had a fever Sat night, but slept half the day yesterday and stole a two hour nap this afternoon as well. I took the lead in one of our exercises tonight at English class and things went fairly well. The students still have a hard time seeing me as the "teacher" since I am young enough to be their child, but as I am being phased into the teaching, I think their respect for me is growing as well.

John, I have a whole carton of Akdeniz Suyu in the fridge now. It may make it to lunch tomorrow. Maybe. Gouge, I hope this doesn't bring the "sex site" lockdown again. Sex Sex Sex. And Monsieur Masson, you have my email address now. I am waiting to hear from you and/or your lovely wife.

You'll just have to wait...

I'm sorry to disappoint. There are so many great stories to tell about the week with Caesar. I can't wait to give you all the rundown on the Turkish bath, our trip to Tarsus, and all the great conversations that took place. But you know what? I will wait.

Why? Because I am sick. I kind of had a cough yesterday, but it has turned into quite a hacker and there's a fever to go along with it. I'll be honest with all of you now, as much as I'd like to be a big, strong, tough man, when I get sick, I turn into a pretty big baby.



I don't want to get up. I don't want to make myself something to drink or eat. I just want to lie in bed! It's at times like this that I wish I had a wife/mother/good friend (preferably with soft, warm hands to feel my head with and a sweet southern accent to read to me with) here to take care of me.

I hope I feel good enough to go to church tomorrow. And rest assured that as soon as I'm better, you'll get to hear all about the week that was with Caesar Augustus.

He's here!

My boy Caesar Augustus is here. He's actually a university student in another city of the country, but earned the name Caesar by beating myself and four of the V boys in a massive game of Risk, the game of global domination, a couple nights ago. He is a fair, just, and honorable ruler.



But he has come to enjoy some of his break from his university classes. I don't know if he's really getting much rest, but we're having a blast. The first night he was here, we had a big dinner with all our new co-workers over at the V house. That was when he showed his military prowess in the war to end all wars (which I would've won if it hadn't have been for West Africa who held off my offensive despite the fact that I held a 26-18 advantage going in). Then yesterday, he got to experience Turkish church for the first time. He said that he was really encouraged to see people worshipping God and doing church together in a place where it's not really all that common or accepted. After church we met one of his friends from university (yeah, he visits me and we spend time with his friends!) for dinner. We had an awesome spread, as you can only get in this city, and Caesar got to experience some of the local cuisine. We had a lot of good conversation over dinner and then we left there for some time at the pool hall. I wiped the table with these poor boys (they teamed up to play me). One game, the only one of their balls to go in was one that I sank accidentally. So to get revenge, this other guy wanted to play some ping pong. Well, he did end up beating me in three of the four games we played, but I took one from him and sent another one into quadruple overtime before he snatched it from me. It was really a ton of fun and I declared it the best day of 2007, so far! I know it's only been a week, but you got to set the bar sometime, and last night it was set pretty high.

So we came home and sat around talking and working a puzzle my roommate had gotten for his birthday. We talked about everything from life to love to the Holy Ghost. It really felt like both of us were just unloading all the thoughts and emotions we'd been storing up over the last couple months. To go this long without any meaningful conversation with someone that I feel can relate is really tough. But now that he's here, I took advantage of it. We talked LATE into the night, into the early morning. We covered every imaginable topic that had been concerning us. Time management, what our jobs are, do we "need" recreation, can you find God in the NBA or in the music Dave Matthews makes, what we're going to do after this time here is over, what it'll be like trying to readjust to life in America, learning this stinking language, how to handle awkward times with the opposite sex, what'd we'd like to see happen and change, not just around us, but in us. There was much more to it than that, but I can't recall everything we talked about in all those hours of conversation. I can just tell you that it felt great and it's such a blessing to have this guy around for a few days. He's a great friend, a friend that's as close as a brother.

And with this brother, I'm making my first trip to a Turkish bath today. I will not be posting pictures of this trip, but you can be assured it will get a blog entry. I can't wait!

Where the Sidewalk Ends

There is a place where the sidewalk ends
And before the street begins.
And there the grass grows soft and white,
And there the sun burns crimson bright,
And there the moon-bird rests from his flight
To cool in the peppermint wind.

Let us leave this place where the smoke blows black
And the dark street winds and bends.
Past the pits where the asphalt flowers grow
We shall walk with a walk that is measured and slow,
And watch where the chalk-white arrows go
To the place where the sidewalk ends.

Yes we'll walk with a walk that is measured and slow,
And we'll go where the chalk-white arrows go,
For the children, they mark, and the children, they know
The place where the sidewalks ends.
-Shel Silverstein

It's really late here, I can't sleep, and I was going to post this tomorrow anyways, so you're getting a good one late at night.

I love this poem, and this whole book. I randomly found it on the shelf at the little Co-Op school I help out at. It's full of fun little poems that make you laugh and a few that really make you think. This is one of those that does both. I don't know what Shel was getting at when he wrote this, but I like to think he was talking about going to heaven someday. That's where life's "sidewalk" will surely end. The walk that is "measured and slow" sounds to me a lot like walking in righteousness, and it's the type of walk I want to walk here, in this life, to bring some joy and light to the place "where the smoke blows black."

So if you get a chance pick up a copy of this book. It's really great. I'll leave you with an interesting note about Shel and a few more little poems of his. Interesting fact: Shel Silverstein actually wrote country music! He is the author of one of Johnny Cash's major hits, "A Boy Named Sue." He also did some recording with the great Jerry Reed and even greater Waylon Jennings. I never would've guessed that.

"My Beard"
My beard grows to my toes,
I never wear no clothes,
I wraps my hair
Around my bare,
And down the road I goes.

"My Rules"
If you want to marry me, here's what you'll have to do:
You must learn how to make a perfect chicken-dumpling stew.
And you must sew my holey socks,
And soothe my troubled mind,
And develop the knack for scratching my back,
And keep my shoes spotlessly shined.
And while I rest you must rake up the leaves,
And when it is hailing and snowing
You must shovel the walk... and be still when I talk,
And-hey-where are you going?

Waking up at 6 AM is good for the soul.

Actually, it was before 6, but I didn't get out of bed till about five till. Why the early rise? God was calling to me.

Let me set the stage for this one. Last week was wonderful. The whole holiday season has been great. I spent a lot of good, quality time with some friends that have become as close as family here. I enjoyed hanging out with the grown ups and playing with the kids. I ate a ton of good food and was thankful that I had people to spend the holidays with. Then it happened. Everything stopped.

No more dinners, no more parties, no more friends. They were still there, they didn't go anywhere, but I was not with them. I had spent a large chunk of the last two weeks immersed in an English speaking world full of Americans. I had avoided, for a full week, almost any meaningful interaction with a Turk. So when all the celebrations were over and I was left in my apartment with no one to talk to, I slumped.

I had the moops most the day Sunday (our wonderful dinner excluded), all day Monday, and all day yesterday. I couldn't break myself out of it. I was lonely. I wanted to talk to people. I can't talk to people here. I don't know the language. I can't talk to people in America. Our lives are just too different now. (These are my thoughts, not realities.) So I was stuck. I was stuck in feelings of unrequited love and unrequited friendship. And I was stuck with these feelings in a country that doesn't want me here. So that's what I went to bed with last night.

Then I had a bad dream. It was a dream about my time in Colorado, with the Division of Wildlife. In the dream, I met with some game wardens that had heard stories about me and thought of me very highly. I showed them some things that I knew and their idea of me grew. Finally in the dream, I was sitting in an office interviewing to be rehired, only I was being interviewed by one of the people that disliked me the most while I was there. I woke up, before 6, and laid in bed thinking about second chances. Not just with this job, but in all areas of life. Sometimes we get them, sometimes we don't. But that's not what struck me.

I went to the bathroom, made myself a cup of coffee, and then came back in here and sat down. As I sat here, the silence was broken by the call of the minarets, the mornings first time of prayer. It echoes very loudly in the calm blackness of the morning here, and it echoed in my soul. God may grant me a second chance in CO someday. I may get a second chance with some beautiful girl. I may get a second chance to befriend the guys I meet randomly. But once someone dies following the teachings of Muhammed, there is no more second chance for them. They are gone. Damned to an eternity in hell, apart from the one true and glorious God.

So there is no time to be moping around, wallowing in self pity. I may feel lonely, but I am not alone. I have the Spirit of the Most High God with me at all times. That is a comfort that the people here can not rest in. As I look out my window, I see apartment buildings full of literally thousands of people lost in darkness. I have a language to learn. I have friends to make. I have truth to spread. I may get a second chance at a lot of things during my life, but I do not get a second chance at life. Once a day is gone, it is gone. There's no going back.

So I am committing myself to making the most of the time I have here. I don't want to waste days. I will work on this language. I will work on finding friends. I was work on building relationships. When I need it, I will work on resting my body and soul. But I must work while it is day, because night is fast approaching.

Judging by past experience, I am sure I will need this same pep talk in the weeks and months to come. But I am holding on to it now. God woke me up before the sun this morning so that I could hear the call to prayer, both from the minaret, and from His Spirit.

Grape Leaves, Cheeks and Ears, and Walking the Line

So I welcomed in the New Year with a family from church. My roommate and I arrived in time for dinner, a little after 8, and man, what a dinner! I felt horrible, but the poor lady put so much on my plate that I could not clear it. I was beginning to feel sick by how much I had already eaten when she asked if I wanted more. It was unbelievable. There was eggplant cooked in a tomato sauce with some sort of sausage, some other sausage things that were deep fried in breading (think small corn dog except with spicy lamb sausage), there were all types of salads (four different ones I think), homemade humus, baked chicken (of which I was given a whole quarter), rice, and finally, and by far the best, were these little grape leave things. They were the size and shape of those really big pretzel sticks. It was simply grape leaves stuffed with rice and spicy meat and I don't know if I've eaten anything in this country that tasted as good. You can see why I was feeling so sick to my stomach! I ate till I just couldn't eat anymore. Then, around 10 or so, a table of different fruits and nuts was brought into the living room (yes, they picked up the kitchen table and brought the whole thing). I had to eat again, since one of the daughters was peeling fruit and handing it to me. If it hadn't have tasted so good, I would've been miserable. As it was, it was a good miserable.

But by far the best part of the evening for me was after the fruit and nut table was finished. The little girl (I'm guessing maybe 8 years old) took the better part of an hour teaching me the Turkish word for different things in the living room, and different body parts. She was great, and honestly, I probably learned more new words in that hour than I did all last week. She is a tough teacher! More than once I had to hold out my hand so she could slap it for missing words. And surprisingly, the hardest two words for me to get right were the words for cheek and ear. They're similar enough to confuse me and different enough to make me feel like an idiot when I can't get them right. When it was all said and done, it was probably the most laid back New Year's Eve I've had in a while and by far the most I've eaten on New Year's Eve (that does not include New Year's at the Gouges, since they're dinner is on New Year's Day, not Eve).

And finally, if you haven't seen the movie "Walk the Line," go watch it. It really is a good movie. It's just a movie about life, the life of a very famous man, but a very mortal man. It'll give you a little insight into why Johnny Cash was so famous to begin with. He could relate to his fans. I am in no way saying my life has been anything like his, but I can say that if any celebrity could walk into one of my family's patented Christmas Smackdowns and not be caught off guard, it'd be a man like Johnny Cash. And though adulterous in nature, the love story between himself and June Carter is great. I love a movie with a whole lot of loving in it! Watching the movie took me back home, to Piedmont, SC, and to the nights my grandpa would get drunk and crank up his western swing eight tracks and dance with my sister in the living room. Good times.