Catch-up Blitz: Truth and Mirrors

My only excursions my first few days in Frankfurt were to the grocery stores (more on that later). I was enjoying the peace in the home of my friend-- the peace of being welcome and an unexpected relief associated with food. My friend was not watching every bite that I took, looking for hypocrisy or evidence to use against me in a budget or quality argument. I had not consciously realized how closely and insanely I was being watched in my first place-- my knowledge of it was simply a stiffening in between my scapula, a slow growing tension that I only noticed in its absence. Sweet relief! I am rescued indeed; I probably could not have lived healthy in that household. Chronic stress is fatal, and it seems that an unhealthy relationship with food can be contagious.The entire first weekend I simply let all the tension drain out of me.The first few days of the week were spend in emails and logistics, and lots of time praying, also indoors. I felt very responsible for trying to brainstorm lists of leads, and do research and soul search: I had been so excited to get to play the housewife for a year, but then I thought maybe this would be the time when God would give me a career so that I could really take care of myself. I took a step back, feeling certain that while God had called me here thus far, I could not readily assume that He would not also send me back. My mind and heart were very full. Hurtful things that had been said rang in my ears; I carried them to the cross. On the way, I considered them a little. There may have been some truth in them. I care very deeply about truth. I always want to be able to hear it and receive it. But here is the tricky thing about it:
Truth does not swallow without love.

I love truth almost more than love and after 19 years (it took 7 for me to fall in love with truth) of struggling to bite back the startling realizations of reality when they would not be kind to cloak in words, I am rebelling. Not against swallowing my words until I know they are necessary and coated thoroughly in verbed-love: this will be the undertaking of a lifetime, glory-ward growth from merely seeing Jesus into understanding how to follow Him, how to take hand in His works when I've spotted Him. I am rebelling against the double standard I have held for myself: that I must be willing to take caustic truth from the lips of those who speak with intent to hurt, who do not demonstrate care and who do not mean me well. Yet, I must be careful not to speak a hard truth in anger, out of hurt, or into a situation in which I have not first demonstrated care, that when the truth is spoken, it may be also be heard. No more double standard: I can say NO. I do NOT have to carry with me a hateful monologue and I do NOT need to do "due diligence" and go mucking through it, trying to sort the wheat from the chaff and driving myself crazy trying to tease some gold out of the dross. God has promised that He is the one who drives my sanctification. I do not conform to the image of the world, the church, or the convenience of the people around me: I change only as He moves me to become more like Him.So when God wants to correct me, convict me: He is welcome. He has showered me with love, and He has my trust. I know that conforming to His standards turns me into someone I will like, and someone I will like to be.

But this is not to say that God does not use people to speak these convictions. I do not conform to the image of the church, but the church may help me hear Jesus. It is just to say that I do not need to give people who hate me authority to speak to my heart, in case I might miss some truth. I do not need to sort through unpleasant interactions with people in order to discover which rough bits of my soul God wants to sand: I can let go of those interactions (with forgiveness, as I have been forgiven, and forget them, as my sins have been forgotten) and instead lean into the wise and loving relationships I am cultivating. There are people in my life who love me well, and who really know me. These who have earned my trust may have authority in my heart.

And that's when I realized: I have asked these people for help in sorting out the lies from the truth in the rehashing of hateful conversations, but I have never proactively sought external feedback about my character. George Herbert says, "The best mirror is an old friend." My friends have let me know if I have mud on my face or food in my teeth, but when I only ever check when I am running out the door-- when the time, or the emotional margin is not enough for braces or a haircut-- what is someone you love to say to you? "Yup, you look fine!" It's not a lie-- you do: you look as fine as you can given the constraints, but not as good as you could if you invited the Good Physician to cure that acne problem and heal the patchy over-plucked eyebrows. We honor Him when we invite Him in, to heal and beautify His bride. Yet, the goal of Christianity is not self-improvement, it is to worship the gracious King. I don't believe too much self-reflection, even in the tradition of accountability, is healthy. So we do not live our lives in front of a mirror, not even the mirror of each other, but let's say every ten years or so, it is maybe a good idea to check in and identify the key areas when you could love people and obey God better if God healed you there. Accountability voices can affirm what God has directly show you in these times. I am excited at the revelation that I can rebel from even looking into fun house mirrors, and instead see through glass tempered by discernment and grace. There will be tempering of character through rough people and interactions, but let it be by the struggle to close eyes and hug sandpaper, allowing it to grate while love rubs off, rather than trying to understand the sounds it makes or make out a reflection from it's splintered glassy bits.

And all this giant rambling is merely to set up my next story by saying:
I had a wonderful conversation with my best friend and she said many helpful things which have caused me to deeply reflect. One changed some habits which led to more stories:
"Get out and enjoy meeting God where you are now. God did not suddenly and awesomely pull you all the way across the world so you could sit in a room and think. You could have done that in Virginia. I think He's delighted that you are trying to be so responsible and obedient and practical, and I am not saying go spend a ton of money, but get the heck out there and enjoy where He has brought you."

So I went out and explored.

Catch-up Blitz: German Achorns and German Bureaucracy

I met Mr. Achorn on my seventh day in Germany. I had finally found my way to the correct office to do the correct bit of paperwork to get the ball rolling on all those wonderful doorways: visas to stay and SOFA status to get on base and mail packages and visit the library and get driving all over Europe. I waited in his lobby for forty minutes, reading posters on the wall about immigration laws and proper procedure, and the dire consequences of misinforming a government employee at any point in the process. If there is anything they take really seriously in Germany, it's beer and bureaucracy. He was polite, even quite friendly and joking with me. He answered all my questions and provided explanations when I was confused. He was new in the office, also just moved to Bad Schwalbach. He clearly marked off which items I needed to obtain to get the process rolling, and included his email address if I had any questions. Lovely!
I got started immediately, stopping on the way home to take my biometric pass photos. That evening, I emailed him my proof of insurance, told my boss how important it was to have my name on the mailbox (they won't deliver if your name isn't on the box), and asked for the 100 euros to cover the fee. Then came the debacle where my boss lost her wallet (it was lying on the counter) and canceled all of her bank and credit cards so that she didn't have access to her money either, but after another 5 days or so I was able to show up with everything I needed. Again, Mr. Achorn was friendly and firm, making clear that I was here at the moment on a Tourist visa, and was allowed to be in Germany for three months on that visa. I was expressly forbidden from working without a permit-- including as an au pair. I was here as a guest until I received the appropriate documents in the mail, which was not guaranteed. It would need to be approved by the appropriate body. (I have no idea if that is a committee or just an official.) It was good that I had a contract, because a contract was needed to give approval for work and work was needed as grounds for the visa to stay.
Five days later, after it had all fallen apart, I emailed Mr. Achorn again. My boss wanted me to try to get the fee back (since when does any bureaucracy refund fees? that's a nice dream.) and I wanted to ask my friendly Mr. Achorn what kind of paperwork I needed to do now that my situation had changed. His first question? "Where are you living? I need to know if I am still responsible for you." Typical. Essentially, when I told him, his main point became that I needed to register in the new location in order for him to no longer be responsible for my file. Except that my generous and hospitable friend's rent might go up if I were registered at her apartment, which is ridiculous to start with since I was only one-month guest. I tried to explain this, stressing over composing emails in German and going back in forth with edits. In the end, I made an intentional decision to ignore this, hoping a little silence, a little holding close of the cards, would be in my favor. We will see, when/ if it comes time for me to complete work permit/visa paperwork if this story with Mr. Achorn has a pleasant ending or foreshadows an unpleasant twist. He was waiting for my file to come from Berlin, from eight years ago, so I know that anything that goes into my file here will be there literally forever, though I may never know the contents.
In the meantime, I am grateful for his thorough explanations. I am prepared: I know how much time I have and I know what kind of paperwork I need to be an au pair. I know I need to bring lots of cash to the Auslaenderbehoerde and I need to keep my biometric pass photos. I know I need to get there first thing when it opens and I know that I do not need to be intimidated by the process: I can follow a checklist, and now I have some practice writing inquisitive emails in German. I just may send Mr. Achorn a thank-you note.

Catch-up Blitz: Unemployment and Emails

I haven't kept you updated very well in the last month. It's been a time with a different quality: an odd, lovely, waiting time, with spurts of activity and a low thrum of anxiety held at bay by a swarm of small moments of prayer.

First came the flurry of emails sent: agonizing over the boundary negotiation with my first-almost Au pair boss, then a quick return trip immediately the day after to retrieve a package, and the fury and disappointment when I was tricked into spending 3 hours and 15 euros and there was no package, just a tense request for the now-no-longer-needed house key, which could have been mailed. And when I am furious, it is almost always with myself: I should have had a plan, been clever enough somehow to see that this might be coming and know what I would do in that case, instead of being caught by surprise by treachery from an untrustworthy person. I took the high road and stayed "innocent as a dove", acting in good faith, but I lacked the capacity to be "wise as a serpent". The trustworthy trust easily, the untrustworthy trust no one, since we expect others to be like ourselves. The wise are trustworthy but wary, and set aside self-absorption to see others as they are. How can it have taken me 19 years since I started paying attention to get only this far? I can only hope that I am learning now to make better use of time and the opportunities that lay around me.

Then came another flurry of emails and facebook interactions: informing my friends and family what was going on and asking for advice and help. Making lists of leads and ideas, and trying not to get completely overwhelmed by the flood of ideas and information coming my way. Soaking up the love and support as fortification against uncertainty. Filling time with the simple acts of a weekend-- food shopping on Saturday (everything is closed on Sundays here), going to church, resting after a restless and stressful and sleepless couple days and the long-laden journey.

And then Monday, the first week of unemployment. Time to tackle things, time to learn again how to make the most of time. It is a very strange situation: to have totally unstructured time, which feels like endless time, and yet to have only 11 weeks to find a job, a place to live and get the paperwork for all of it approved through the German system. I have never liked unemployement. Even though I have enough personal projects (gifts to make, files to organize, letters to write, guitar to practice, it goes on for a while...) at any given point to occupy several lifetimes, with no where to be, I freeze up. Not all the time, of course, but it is actually very difficult to stop trying to make the "best" of time: meaning evaluating every way that the time could be spent and comparing the merits to declare a king, by which end all the time is gone, having been used to evaluate the infinite possibilities. Instead, to make the "most" of time-- pick something, not something perfect, but something reasonably useful and JUST DO IT. To actually be a little less obsessively intentional, and instead to keep moving. To pray, "Lord, I'm going to go ahead and organize my propped-open suitcase and find a new place for my piled-up tourist materials and if that isn't where you want me to spend my time, please redirect me. I want to be working in your will." And find myself writing an email to my immigration-office guy in the middle of folding socks a half hour later. Instead of praying, "Lord, what do you want me to do today?" and then find myself still sitting there, daydreaming out the window an hour later, having not even an interesting revelation to show for the time. (Yes, both these scenarios really happened in this particular week. There has been loads of time wasted-- this learning process is definitely not without its failures.)

Really, I'm kind of back where I was when I moved to Northern Virginia in October 2011: unemployed, living on grace and hospitality, overwhelmed with the enormous number of possibilities, (I could go anywhere! I could do many, many things!) waiting on the Lord to show me what next. In that particular situation, after 4 months of utterly wasted time, I wound up working at Starbucks in utter desperation-- not because I had been rejected so many times (I think I may have submitted one real job application, but I can't remember where), but because I knew that if I didn't get my time structured SOMEHOW, I would never get moving with the process. There was a lot of training that God put me through in NOVA: many trials of stewardship, discipline, steadfastness and trust. If I were the one grading myself, I would give myself an F for the first quarter and maybe a C by the end. So while I hate being unemployed, in many ways this is an exciting second trial: another chance to grow. God sees Jesus' straight-A record when He looks at me, but He is also circling back around, covering the material again so that I will not have to live without experiencing Him fully in these circumstances. How many times will we do this? As many as it takes. He is discontent that I should not know Him as the God Who Is There In My Unemployment. Or maybe even, the God Who Is There For Me, Even When I Do Not Make The Most Of Time. I bet these names sound better in Hebrew.

A snapshot of a quick flight.

Here I am, Fleeing Egypt! There is no leavened bread in that lunch bag-- just rice cakes spread with my homemade chicken liver pate-- I wasn't going to leave that behind! The German lady who took this picture looked at me like I was crazy. I can't decide which part of this trip was the most difficult-- the 600 yards uphill to this bus stop, or the 1000 yards from where I got off the S-bahn to where I met my friend in the station. I actually had to stop and rest several times! I thought my forearms would fall off.

Here is the street where I have stayed in beautiful, beautiful Frankfurt. They plant so many trees! There is one right behind and right in front of my friend's apartment. It is unbearably lovely to look out the window and see green, even though I can hear the city just beyond. It feels so sheltered and safe, screened from prying eyes, but in an organic way that doesn't isolate. I also notice how much care Germans tend to take with their buildings. They have such amazing high ceilings, and it is typical rather than unusual to find lots of ornamentation framing the different floors and windows-- like molding, but on the outside. The paint is fresh, but the proportions are from a different time. I think most of the buildings left here were built in the 1800s or early 1900s. Germans prefer to renovate, rather than tear down and build fresh. This is not to say that there aren't ugly buildings or neighborhoods too crammed for trees, or very modern buildings, just that as I walk the city I see more evidence of intentionality than neglect. The impression is formed that people who are permitted to make a mark on this town are somehow required to consider their long-term effects. I'm sure it's a pain in the butt if you are trying to build something, but I can see the fruit it produces.

On Saturday it will be a month since I moved here, and I will begin moving my things out. God has been incredibly faithful, and I have now another friend who has invited me to stay while I work things out. She even lives quite near the first friend, so that I am not completely uprooted from all the exploration I have done of this area. We will see what happens in October-- this second friend has someone coming to live with her then, maybe, so it may be best for me to have something else by then. I'm aware-- but I'm not worrying. God provided a second place, He can provide a third, or a fourth, or a fifth, and even if He doesn't and I wind up flying home to the states-- I still trust Him. His good doesn't always look the way I am expecting it to look. Actually, His good almost never looks the way I am expecting it to look, and I find that He has to work on my eyes as He's working good for me, that I may see it. But here at least are two good pictures, which I never would have imagined before. Frankfurt was never on my radar, and who could imagine that lugging a lunch bag, a purse, a bag filled with books, a guitar and two heavy suitcases across two cities could be such blessing?