re-track

9.18am
meghan dropped me off at the charlotte station this morning for my 7.50am departure. since then, i've been catching up on sleep that late-night talks and goofing off displaced. i awoke in my own company, without the impression of her on my mind.

meghan and i both started wearing 'happy' perfume since we last saw each other, and i asked her What does this mean? Are we the same person now? to which she replied, "i think it means that deep down inside, your name is really Meghan." Or Meghan's name is really Kristin. either way.

but sometimes i really do wonder if we share a soul because we're so darn similar. we dance, we do film, we're too independent for our own good, we love pinot grigio, we overanalyze everything, we naturally slip into leadership mode (for better or worse), we handle men exactly the same way...i mean, we even get the same fortune out of our fortune cookies!

...it's always good to spend time with someone who's basic unconscious strategies for fulfillment resonate with your own. it legitimizes my longings, normalizes difficulties and successes in attaining these longings, and in general reminds me that i'm not as abnormal and off as i sometimes think i am. what a relief!

10.03am
Be still and know that I am God.
Be still and know that I am.
Be still and know.
Be still.still.still.
Be.

10.12am
Be still and know that I am God.
Be still and know that I am. in the flock of birds taking flight from a dewy meadow. in the leaves that flutter and the wind that moves them and in the sunlight that flickers on their faces. in your water. in your coffee. in your breath. your coffee breath. Be still and know that I am.
Be still and know.
Be still.
Be.

10.18am
Be still and know that I am God. The God who knows your future. The God who knows your body temperature and chemical balance-- or imbalance for that matter. The God who inspires you to discover and create truth. I will be your God while you live and when you die. I will make something of your life, even though you feel confused and underutilized and ambiguous in your youth. Be still and know that i am God.
Be still and know that i am. God beneath you, God in front of you, God behind you, God above you, God within you.
Be still and know.
Be still.
Be.

Be still...........Be still....... ..... ............ . ... .. .. . . ... ..Be still.

amtrak

wednesday 26 october 2005
11.34am

this is poprocks cool. before me lies a nine-hour amtrak train ride from washington, d.c. to charlotte, north carolina. yesterday i decided that air travel feels outdated in a world where digitized communcation provides instantaneous connections between remote locations; the transportation of our bodies is a comparatively slower process. i guess there are slower means of travel than airtravel, including car, bus, lightrail and train (all of which I've experienced already today).

it gets better. there's a little boy who just sat down at my table with me. he's very social, which i suppose could be concluded due to the fact that he's now made his move from across the table to approximately in my lap. he's doing this thing, asking everyone who walks past "what is your name?!?" and when they don't answer he shouts after them, "my name is nikos!!" and he's biting his pretzels into numbers and letters and quizzing me to make sure i possess alphabet recitation abilities and basic math skills. i love his spirit. in fact, i respect him, though he's only "four and a half years old, but my birthday's on april 9!" unashamed. unapologetic. endearing.

there's even a train whistle blowing now as we approach the first virginia stop. Pop.ROCKS!

12:00PM
"Soul Meets Body"
Deathcab for Cutie

I want to live where woul meets body
And let the sun wrap its arms aroundme
And bathe my skin in water cool and cleansing
And feel what it's like to be new
'Casue in my head there's a Greyhound station
Where I send my thoughts to far-off destinations
So they may have a chance of finding a place where they're far more suited than here

And I cannot guess what we'll discover
When we turn the dirt with our palms cupped like shovels
But I know our filthy hands can wash one another's
And not one speck wilol remain

And i do believe it's true that there are roads left in both of our shoes
But if the silence takes you then I hope it takes me too
So Brown Eyes I'll hold you near 'cause you're the only song I want to hear
A melody softly soaring through my atmosphere

Where soul meets body


3.38pm
i see my first cotton field out the west window of the train! it's so short!! i pictured cotton plants being the same height as stalks of corn, but i guess that's a pretty pretentious assumption to make. ...nikos and his older brother are sleeping. their grandfather vito is flirting with two women, 60-ish in age, both with hair dyed blonde and speaking in southern accents. he speaks fluent spanish but has a strong new york italian accent when he speaks english. i'm not sure what to make of him, but that i like him. "how far am i going? FAR! anywhere off the island is far. anytime you cross the River, it's Far," he's saying. and he's offering advice on balance: "you've heard the phrase 'you don't use it you lose it?' well, let me tell you. if you can do that, learn how to balance yourself, and start doing it on one foot...close your eyes and learn to balance. i'll tell ya, i had a problem with my hip. i went to a guy and he used all his fancy technology and this guy, he has this rubber ball and it's only half-filled. it's very unstable. and he makes me sit on another ball. and he stands there to make sure i don't break my neck. but he makes me do exercises on these very unstable balls. and these exercises work the ity-bity muscles and i learned to maintain my balance. i learn with my eyes closed. you can do it, you can do it. even if you only do a couple of seconds. a lot of people get dizzy because they haven't learned to balance; their muscles and their inner ear aren't exercised. it's a shame that someone as vibrant as you (he's pointing at one of the blondes) might start to lose it. listen to the grey hair (now he's pointing at his own salt-and-pepper hair). i know what i'm saying." ...does this make any sense?? is he flirting? if you were an old woman with hair dyed blonde, would you fall for this new yorker with oddball philosophies?

Quote of the day: "Like travel, transformation is a kind of journey" (50).ˇ

Gerald Ford International Airport

tuesday 25 october 2005
6something pm

i just sat down at a round table in the rear of Gerald Ford International Airport's atrium lounge. i have no idea how this airport can be classified as an international airport. not only is it ridiculously small but the only international flights departing here are headed to the Netherlands, right? behind my table is a window decorated with a cartoon jet, a sun peaking out from behind a puffy, white cartoon cloud, and three purple and white hot air balloons floating at much higher altitudes than the jet. above the decorated window reads "Kids Port" and behind the window are three toddler-aged children making this visit to the Gerald Ford International Airport feel "just like home" to every person within earshot (which is pretty much the entire Gerald Ford International Airport, as we've already discussed). "good choice of location, kristin. way to use that brain of yours to find the most obnoxiously located round table in the entire international airport."

there's a balding man to my left reading the paper and listening to his ipod on those ear-tampon headphones. i'm reminded that i wanted to stop on my way here to pick up my some of these tampon headphones. instead i reach into my pink EmileHenry LeMeilleur dela Terre "Oven-to-table ware" cotton bag for my outdated fold-up headphones. now i'm styling. if that balding guy only knew i was scheming to knock him cold and steal his ear-tampon headphones... then i could more effectively block out the screaming children in Kids Port.

it's good to be on the road again. i know it's good for me to psychologically reset every few months. it's like my imagination can only travel so far without the help of my body. i mean, i can talk with friends half way across the globe in just seconds and i can transmit information to the most remote locations in the world in nanoseconds. but my body is still restricted to exponentially slower means of travel. i should invent teleportation. anyway, there's something for me that is absolutely sacred about traveling alone. my body moves and so my soul starts leaking out through a pinhole in my psyche.

the sun is getting low in the sky and tinting the fall landscape just so. up to the observation deck to absorb some of this tinted light. up to the observation deck to let my soul absorb this tinted light.


9:38pm
flight 250 out of Gerald Ford International Airport was delayed 40 minutes. any longer and i might have missed my connection. forty minutes of travel-related stress is now manifesting itself in the form of pressure at the top of my spinal cord and in my forehead. at least i think it's travel-related stress. it could also be my reading of nils bohr's refutation of the EPR paper which asserted that the quantum mechanical theory is incomplete on the basis of "spooky action at a distance." ...it struck me that the quantum mechanics is still quite familiar to me. i though i'd have forgotten by now, or at least repressed memories of 25-hour long quantum mechanics exams (no joke). i guess i really am a physicist. sometimes i forget (maybe there is some repression afterall). one thing i don't forget though is the conundrum physics has left me in. i mean, this is my degree and my mind is a fine-tuned mathematical machine. rah, rah, rah!!! but i'm too impatient to do physics everyday. and too relational. and too physical. and too creative. ah! i'm not one of any of these things. i'm a hybrid. so. right. i should write a book called "250 career options for mathematically-minded, highly-relational, results-oriented, creative types." or perhaps i should write one called "how to become a filmmaker in 90 days or less: a guide to career changes for physicists." anyway, my point is that i connect with something in what i'm reading in einstein and bohr and d. mermin ("is the moon there when nobody looks?"). maybe i should take the next two years to review my physics and go to grad school for atomic physics. or i could follow my friend elise to notre dame for the philosophy of physics. or i could follow my passion for the church into seminary. or for working collaboratively to create art into film. i can tell i've made my conundrum worse by problem-solving continuously for the past several months. this trip i will empty myself of all problem-solving and simply pray and wait.

2.46am
i should be in bed but i had to see if i could download itunes for my amtrack trip tomorrow morning. the media player that came installed on my new computer doesn't even allow me to skip tracks. how annoying. anyway, there is a voicebox woman telling me to restart my computer so itunes can finish installing. best be on my way.

atlantis?

last night i dreamt i had a job working for a ocean research institute located in an underwater research center on the sea floor. my job was to help out on the freight submarine bringing supplies to the institute. i dreamt that two of my coworkers were arguing over what type of beer to take back with us on the submarine. how's that for bizarre! i guess i've been working too much at the bar/restaurant...

this pic is from "The Abyss" (1989). i suppose my dream is reminiscent of this fantastic flick. perhaps i should watch it again soon.

Happy Canadian Thanksgiving!!!

i'm writing from the back of a jeep from which i can see a herd of sleeping lions to the left, elephants splashing in the river to the right and giraffes munching on the treetops straight ahead. this is my african safari. okay, so i'm actually in canada, toronto to be exact. which is pretty much the same thing as being on an african safari.

the occasion is canadian thanksgiving (you can't really go wrong with two thanksgivings in one year!) today we went to thanksgiving dinner at the home of a professional chef. SO incredible! (almost on par with an african safari...). but we lucked out because apparently thanksgiving here isn't as big of a deal as in the states. the meal is often potluck (e.g. meatballs and potato salad and coleslaw) and people usually spend it at home instead of making it into a family reunion. it may just be canada but this certainly feels like a different world. i even bought a pack of Pete Jackson cigarettes (since there are no american cigarettes available here). they're shorter than smokes we have back home, have impossible packaging requiring a rocket scientist to successfully use (fortunately, we were in luck since i happen to be such a rocket scientist) and are plastered by the surgeon general with pictures of people on ventilators and brains with stroke damage. do cigarettes cause health issues? yes, absolutely true. but still so bizarre. see below.












by the way, there really is an african safari here in toronto. it seems a very unlikely place for lions and elephants and giraffes to live, but it really exists. check out the website at
http://www.lionsafari.com/index2.asp

basket case

ever wondered why where the phraseology 'basket case' derives from? wonder no more.

basket case. Offensive Slang. A person, especially a soldier, who has had lost all four limbs in combat and consequently had to be carried in a litter ("basket"). This term in origin had a physical meaning but was then transferred to an emotionally or mentally unstable person and later to anything that failed to function. In popular usage "basket case" now refers to someone in a hopeless mental condition. In the grim slang of the British army during World War I, it referred to a quadruple amputee. This is one of several expressions that first became popular in World War I, or that entered American army slang from British English at that time.

fire & globalization

I've been reading Philip Jenkins' The Next Christendom (Oxford University Press 2002) for a Globalization Learning Forum I'm doing through church. Jenkins' basic premise is that -- though the general conception of Christianity is of a dying, Western ideology -- a true perception of Christianity would recognize the life and growth of Christianity in the South, that is in Africa, South and Central America and Asia. An important question that is addressed regards whether the globalization that will continue forcing the interaction of people, nations and churches from around the world is itself good or evil.

My first thought is that it is refreshing to read a Western thinker who is writes about the global church with an eye toward the South! Jenkins describes the Southern churches,

"The churches that have made most dramatic progress in the global South have either beern Roman Catholic, of a traditionalist and fideistic kind, or radical Protestant sects, evangelical or Pentecostal. Indeed, this conservatism may go far toward explaining the common neglect of Southern Christianity in North America and Europe. Western experts rarely find the ideological tone of the new churches much to their taste. ...These newer churches preach messages that, to a Westerner, appear simplistically charismatic, visionary, and apocalyptic. In this thought-world, prophecy is an everyday reality, while faith-healing, exorcism, and dream-visions are all basic components of religious sensibility. For better or worse, the dominant churches of the future could have much in common with those of meieval or early modern Euroopean times" (7-8 Jenkins).

But as refreshing as covering the Southern church may be, I still find myself frustrated with many of the characteristics Jenkins mentions above. And so I ask myself, Do I have a prejudiced distaste for non-Western churches? Jenkins goes on to talk about the Taiping movement in China, Virgin movements in Latin America and various prophetic and liberation movements in Africa, all of which in some way or another absused Christianity, using it to further their pre-existing agendas (e.g. to establish communism, dictatorships, and personal authority over the masses). These descriptors by Jenkins were helpful in showing these frustrations of mine to be in many ways legitimate (despite his intent to criticize Western thinkers instead of offer them a compassionate hand). With the buzz of disapproval surrounding all things Western, I think it is important to take a breather and realize that it doesn't make any sense for us to love the world by hating the West.

(And yet the West has much to learn. With powerful movements growing in the South, Westerners need to take the position of students, wide-eyed and close-lipped at what is moving in the world beyond our own.)

***fire & globalization***
Last night, I reveled in the company of friends by a bonfire. As I sat there, I was thinking, "I'm enchanted by the streaks of color in these flames, by the way they move, by the fact that something about being by this fire draws out the souls of my friends." And I started thinking: In the age of information and globalization, it becomes increasingly difficult to live quiet lives protected by national borders or large bodies of water, resulting in constant exposure to cultures and languages and religions different from our own. The idea of a global village results. A camp of thinkers hails globalization as our upcoming savior and proclaims an age in which nations will pool together their resources so that everyone is accounted for. But as I sat around the fire with my friends, I realized that small community works. Traditionally, communal activities have occurred around fires and around dinner tables. Here, community is organic. When it gets bigger than this, organization must be formalized and feels rigidly obvious. In these larger communities, tolerance is a must. And I wondered what effect it would have on our sanity to perpetually break rhythm and tradition and identity for the sake of tolerance and assimilation with cultures different from our own. Would we become neurotic scraps of information amounting to a pile of nothing in particular?

A good friend of mine was part of the Crowded House church in Sheffield, England, and the policy of their community was to split if they could no longer fit in a living room. This makes so much sense to me. (See Faith's Blog by clicking on "wtgm" in my Amigos links) ...and so at the beginning of this Globalization forum, I certainly do not hail globalization as savior; I am wary of its evils or at least aware of its limitations. ...but more to come...