Airport induced rambling

I just recently returned from a 10 day vacation in Florida with my aunt and uncle. It was a wonderful time filled with socializing, basking in the sun, swimming, biking, and generally being lazy. I managed to read 7 books in that time and realized how much I missed the mental energy to read. For some reason I lacked the energy prior to this vacation.

While returning from Florida, I was delayed in the Minneapolis airport. Instead of arriving at around midnight in Winnipeg, I would now arrive around 2am. It ended up being 2:30 am…but the point is that I also realized how much I miss just being present in a place that is vaguely international. Airports are like transitional warp lands without time or real place kind of like those magical pools in C.S. Lewis’ “Magician’s Nephew”. Well, they should be anyway but the stores in the Minneapolis airport seemed subject to the opening hours of their geographical location. I think international airports should not impose local hours on their restaurants and stores or how can they claim to be international? In addition, international airports should not require credit cards with US based billing addresses for phone calls or require you to “buy” your luggage cart with US cash. Is this really international hospitality?

But back to the enjoyment of my timelessness. In an airport, preferably one outside of North America, I can imagine myself on the way to anywhere, pretend to be coming from anywhere, and possibly hear any language at any time. So stretched out over 4 of the only armless seats in my departure area, I felt more grounded than I had in a long time listening to CNN’s incessant stream of repetitive news.  In short I have been hungry for my childhood internationalism and hope to meet more of it in my future.

Wholesome wellness

Mennonites often use a phrase or word in excess and until the point that I feel it lies bruised and battered without real connection to its original context. This is most likely very true for other denominations or religious groups as well. We like language and we adopt it to suit our purpose. A key word in many menno circles is “shalom” and it has been expoused upon, exegeted to death, and adapted to fit the menno style of peace-making while being coveniently proof-texted. I have benefited from all of this since the word suits my purpose as well.

And so this brings me to discuss my own wellness in the wholistic sense. I am extremely thankful that I was introduced to allergy ellimation by acupuncture. It has altered my lifestyle since now I can exercise to my heart’s content without the limitations I previously experienced from asthma. My asthma is not gone, not by a long stretch, but it has improved greatly. This has led to my involvement in martial arts again (yippeee!) without the use of medication. I’m a member of the inner-city YMCA, a place I love because I feel it gets me in touch with real life and people from all over the world. Tae Kwon Do is a free class there and there is no expectation that I will take it so seriously that it consumes my life as it often does for a black belt. The instructor is laid back and non-militant (there are too many power-hungry martial arts instructors out there) and he mixes things up to make it interesting. And I can now jog, an activity that was previously outside of my realm of ability since it’s an endurance exercise.

So on top of being able to eat healthily since I am no longer allergic to a ridiculous amount of foods, I can also stay in shape. For me this is all part of spiritual wellness and healthy Christian faith and too often I forget this. I am very thankful for this new reality and hope never to take it for granted.

Another beginning

Ahh, a new blank page, a clean slate…how to start? My life has changed pretty radically in the last few months or maybe half a year. I was accepted for a position as an international worker with the Mennonite church, I resigned from my previous position, and yeah that’s about it (not really, but that’s the short story).  But even this involves a huge mental and emotional transition from being parked here in Winnipeg to being ready to enter another culture….again.  This is exciting but also raises old anxieties like “will I click with this new culture?”,  “will I find a niche?”, “how in the world will I get everything in order before I leave?”, and “how will I face a new life in a new place alone?”, “will I find a community?”

Oh I should mention where I’m going.  In July I am very fortunate to be co-leading a group of young adults on a tour to Israel. This will follow one month of much needed vacation in June, I’ve been saving up for the past year. Then in August I will start my term as an international worker. In October I will fly yet again to Israel and hang out in Nazareth for a couple of months and then move on to language study in Jordan. That’s the current plan and as life will tell anyone, plans oft go awry and produce something far more wonderful, so we shall see. Anyone who wants to know more details can contact me personally.

I tried to launch this new phase of life with a party and it was great. The open house ran from 3 pm to 10:30pm and was a lot of fun with many garlicky chickpea based foods and blaring Amr Diab…what could be better? Thanks to all who came! It has been amazingly difficult for me to transition into actually owning this new phase of life and I think it may be because the process of applying and so on was rather drawn out and part of me wonders if the process is really complete. Nevertheless, I am very excited to be headed into something new and pretty much unknown.

I hope to keep track of adventures and new thoughts on this blog to some extent, as much as is possible or appropriate.

This morning I come here from a delicious breakfast of falafels and eggs at FalafelPalace, a food combination that I was skeptical about but that proved to be quite delicious (although a wee bit heavy for 8:30 in the morning). I have to admit that Winnipeg does have some very good places to eat with a wide variety of “ethnic” foods and I generally rely on friends who are in tune with good places to eat. And yes, technically I “should” be in church but my commute to church is 1 hour and today it was the decision of 2 hours driving to and from church or breakfast with friends who rarely come into town and are visiting from Tanzania. I have to say that fellowship with friends over good food is very spiritually edifying. Even if the restaurant was owned by an Israeli Jew, catered largely to hippie vegetarian types (I think), and my friends were either anarchists or agnostic. So what does that make me?