This is the Seventh Inning Stretch

Baseball is definitely a game of numbers.

Ask any fan and they will tell you that they minored in Baseball Statistics as an undergrad. As the St. Louis Cardinals' baseball season is well under way and as I see that they are already 10-games over .500, I realize how much I miss watching a game here and there. (And for those who do not yet know the love of the Game, 10-games over .500 in early May means "really good"). Ultimately, though, I am really beginning to miss those friends and family with whom I would (or even would not) watch a Cardinals game. Admittedly, this boy is ready to come home. You can only take so much Europe at once. It is best in small doses. Likewise, you can only go so long without being with all of your family and friends.

Don't get me wrong, I love Europe and I love the eight people whom I'm staying with. But, it's not home. And I do miss many things about the States.


But yeah, life--like baseball-- can be a game of numbers: I am officially 34 days away from my return to the States. Val is 18 days away from her arrival in Rome. Medjugorje awaits us 6 days later. And upon our return, Val and I have 2 and 4 days in Europe, respectively. Craziness.

I had my first interview last Wednesday night. And the very next day, despite their wonderful compliments in the email, they promptly shot me down with my first letter of rejection because of "inexperience." Being 1 for 1, I'm batting a thousand (which non-game-knowers, would be good; but.... in this case it's bad).

Interview 1 follows 4 official "no"'s, even before an interview. My applications have reached 5 states and span over 20 schools. And with a possibility of 10 applicants per position (not including those places where I sent in 4 applications-- haha, just kidding), I have a 1 in 200 chance. Or, 1 in 10, depending on what kind of statistics you're into.


With 20 schools out there looking at my app, and with about 500 kids per school (not including the Seniors), there are roughly 10000 kids currently scared to death that I might be their next year's theology teacher. Mwa ha ha!


But, the WORLD should really be scared. Because each year that I teach, I will be forming 4 or more classes of about 30 students each. That's 120 students each year. Now, I will probably work for 40 years. That means 4800 students will go out into the world with the philosophy and theology I give to them. Now, if each of those students has 10 close friends with whom they share this P&T over the course of their lives, and just half of those 10 friends share it with others as well.... Then, gosh, I will have taught .... carry the one .... 240,000 people!

I'm hyperventalating now. I need a lunchbag.....


Other "completely useless information":
My 10-page Inter-religious Dialogue paper that I wrote over the past two weeks included about 500 pages of reading which took me about 15 hours to flip through. The paper, revised, scrapped, and re-written, took a total of 30 hours to complete. 10 of those hours came the night of its deadline. That's roughly 4.5 hours per page.

Now, there were 4,500 words for this paper. This equates to 17 minutes per word. Or 1070 seconds per word.

Last week's blog on Germany had just over 3,500 words in it. ... and I'm not EVEN gonna start analyzing that!



I have taken over 2000 pictures with my camera while in Rome. Each picture is 1.4 megabytes. That means, I have 2,800,000,000--nearly 3 billion bytes-- of pictures on my computer. Now, there are about 6 billion people in the world. For every two people, there exists on byte.

This is getting ridiculous now. A "REAL" blog will be posted in a day or two.

This is Heaven

As I begin another entry in what has become quite a picturebook of blog, I begin likewise with very few words in my vocabulary adequate enough to describe this past week. This has become the norm as of late: God wows me and I just stand there in babbling awe.

This week, I saw heaven. I'm positive of it. Or, at least, the closest on Earth we come to heaven (second only to the Eucharist at Mass, which truly is heaven on earth). This week, I went to Bavaria.

FUSsen

I departed from Rome on Tuesday night and arrived in Munich early Wednesday morning. From Munich, I took a train southward and into the Bavarian Alps, to a small town called Fussen. A couple kilometers outside of the city, nestled in the mountains, are two castles built by Mad King Ludwig. He wasn’t an “angry” king—he was a king insane. And the extravagance of his castles showed it.

Here is a gate at his Schloss Hohenschwangau.

And within the gate is one of many courtyards. This one has a swan fountain—symbolic of the area: “Schwangau”

Steve and I walked around the castle and took pictures of the marvelous mountains (from which comes the first picture of this blog). It was a chilly, overcast day. And although the sun came out for an hour and warmed things up dramatically, by the time I was done touring the two castles, it was drizzling outside and I could see my breath.

After touring through Schloss Hohenschwangau, I explored some of the mountains, climbing up one and descending into a valley, where I found two huge waterfalls—too huge, actually, to fit into a photograph (hence they are not pictured here). On somewhat of a schedule, I slogged my way up the side of a mountain to visit the other of Mad Ludwig’s castles: Schloss Neuschwanstein. On the way there, I found a cool lookout point and took this picture of Schloss Hohenschwangau. Unfortunately, no photographs were allowed to be taken inside. The paintings, the gold-work, and, most especially, the carvings were amazing. (How’s that for being descriptive? Haha)

Instead of going right to Schloss Neuschwanstein, I headed further up the mountain and found a huge bridge which “bridged” a huge crevice between two mountains (Haha—“Bridge!”—boy, I CRACK myself up! Haha, crack… crevice… hahaha, oh nevermind! Some puns just aren’t worth uttering).

At the bridge, you could see forever,.. and Schloss Neuschwanstein. After some mandatory picture-taking (by “mandatory” I mean that you would be silly if you didn’t), I toured the castle and headed back to Fussen.

Back in Fussen, it started to rain. I nevertheless walked around the town, visited the local church (St. Stephen), and caught a bus to Reutte in Tirol, Austria, where I bought some food, explored a little bit of the town, and caught a train to where I would be staying for the next few days.

My train-ride took me past Garmish-Partenkirchen, a town I always wished to see (as my home in St. Louis has a pretty cool picture of it in the basement). And the mountains around the city are amazing, but there is not much in the city itself. Honestly, there are a multitude of similar and less-touristy towns. Apparently, G-P is touristy because of its closeness to ski-resorts and the Olympic training facility. Beyond that though, time is much better spent out in the countryside and in the mountains themselves.

And yeah, we had some gelato. And were just silly….

Eventually, my train hit Schongau (NOT Schwangau), Germany. And there, my hosts—the Hauser family—picked me up in their French-made car. Go figure. Hans-Peter, a wonderful man who I met while in Medjugorje—who had opened up his home to me as soon as he heard that I was coming to Germany (“give us a call before you depart, and you can stay with us!”)—who did this after only speaking to me for a few moments—took us to his home in Altenstatt, Germany. There, we saw the town church—the original church built 800 years ago, with the original 800-year-old paintings and 800-year-old crucifix.

Back at his house, we met again his wife, Lucia, and their children: Johannes (who at 12, speaks English well) and Katharina (who is 9 and incredibly beautiful). They forcibly sat us down for dinner and fed us ‘till we could eat no more. We talked until late and went to bed. In the morning, Steve and I headed to Munich (pictured below) after a loooong night’s rest. We were tired.

In Munich, Steve and I just explored. We toured a few amazing churches, hit the touristy Marienplatz (the commercial center and walking-area of Munich), and even threw the Frisbee around in a local park after a lunch of standard German fare… which included some AMAZING beer. (It really is better out here). In fact, there is a rule in Bavaria—a rule which Bavaria went to the highest court in Germany over—and that is that for a drink to be properly defined as “beer,” it can only be made with four ingredients: “water, barley, hops, and malt.” Budweiser, because it has rice, is not even considered beer. And if you can find it in Bavaria, people will be wondering who snuck it in—and will be developing ways to sneak it out. Pretty awesome. So, yeah, beer in Bavaria is FAAAANtastic!

And artistic…..

And silly some more.

Of course, while walking around town, I saw many fliers posted. This one grabbed my attention. Why? Because it is a fellow St. Louisan.

No props to his music—but mad props to St. Louis. Ahhh, to be home--- WHAT, I’M IN GERMANY? Ok… I’ll be home later. Haha.

And, as always, being in Germany means finding words and phrases to make fun of. Anything guttural will do. In this case, so will a last name. I’d hate to see him defect to America. And his kids!—they’d be beaten in school! Maybe Germany is best for such a name.

Thumbs up to you, Dr. Hell.


“Pitch-fork—er, umm… SCALPLE!”

Later Thursday evening, Steve and I returned to Schongau and Altenstatt, to again spend the night with the Hausers. When we arrived, they again insisted that we eat, even though we had done so in Munich. And, later, Hans-Peter took us out for the best Weiss beer around at the town pub. Way cool. (Did I mention that the beer rocks in Germany?)

As we went to bed that night we didn’t know what we were going to do in the morning. Hans-Peter had suggested that we go to Marktl, Germany, the birthplace of Pope Benedict XVI. You know, spend an hour there, go to Munich later, maybe another small town later… you know… just for a couple of hours.

I disliked down the idea, thinking we wouldn’t have time (since Marktl was four hours from Altenstatt). But, when I awoke in the morning and it was again brought up, I was like, “Yeah… we’re here after all… why the heck not???” So, off to Marktl!

The train-ride was beautiful. We had to take something like five trains. And we had an hour layover in Munich. So, in Munich, I scurried over to another couple churches that I didn’t get to see the day before… returning just in time to the station to one of those “hey, don’t leave without us!” sprints onto the train.

But, yay! …Marktl!.... ?....

Now, the village of Marktl (and don’t call it a town!) is about 500 people small. It has a church, a bakery, a post office, a bank, and a souvenir shop. Alright. It also has the house where Pope Benedict XVI grew up. And it has the baptismal font where he was baptized. Way cool. It has a cool river, some nice hills surrounding it, and some good…. clouds.

This is where he lived as a boy.

And this is Marktl taking advantage of a tourism opportunity.

Yes, the number of Pope Benedict muffins sold now serves as a financial bellwether of times ahead.

And my pants are a bellwether of my ravenous sloppiness. Messy, messy!

So, Steve and I explored the town and saw the church. At the church, there was a sign saying that there was going to be a special mass with the bishop at 19:00. At this point, the mass was three hours away. I thought about going to it, then I wondered about the train schedule (could we make it back to Altenstatt by midnight?).

Well, I explored the city some more and it began to rain. Ok, I thought, I’m not waiting around Martkl when Munich beckons. I made it over to the train station for the 18:00. Which never came.

There was supposed to be an 18:00. The schedule said there was an 18:00. But, no. No 18:00. Not today. I checked out the schedule, posted on the station wall. And next to the 18:00 was a small—ever so tiny—asterisk. What does that mean??? Apparently, it means, no train. Not for you. (Actually, it means that the 18:00 only comes on Saturdays, not Fridays as today was).

So, back into Marktl I went, since the next—AND LAST-- train was at 20:00. Apparently, I’m going to mass after all.

I find the local museum.

And there, I find Pope Benedict XVI’s real baptismal font. The one in the church is a newer one. This is the original here.

So I go back to the church to pray. No more than fifteen minutes in, I hear music. I hear classic-German-small-town-village music. I book it outside and what do I see but a class Liederhosen band! YEAH!

As they play, I listen and giggle with this unexpected delight. Marktl isn’t a tourist spot. This is the village band. But, why are they playing?

People come out of their houses to hear them.

After ten quick minutes, they walk to another corner of town and begin to play. And that corner of the village begins to turn out. In fact, ALL OF MARKTL is turning out and following this band around. A sporty BMW—new—with a man in military garb drives up. And, ahhhh—the bishop is his passenger!

But this pomp isn’t just for the bishop, it seems. For the village is now coming out in organized groups, wearing similar clothing, and carrying distinguishing banners. The village’s associations are coming out!

But this pomp isn’t just for the bishop, it seems. For the village is now coming out in organized groups, wearing similar clothing, and carrying distinguishing banners. The village’s associations are coming out!

Soon, the village military comes out; and men in liederhosen and women in flowing blue dresses.

This isn’t a tourist spectacle—BECAUSE THERE ARE NO TOURISTS! Steve and I are the only English speakers….

… except for some media that shows up. MEDIA???? Yes, media. Steve and I met up with a British photographer and a Canadian journalist. By why are they here?

Funny, they had the same question for us. “Why are you here?” they asked.

“Well, we are visiting Germany, we’re Catholic, and so we thought it would be cool to see where Benedict grew up.”

“So you knew about today?”

“Today?”

“Yeah, today.”

A little puzzled… “Ummmm, what about today?”

“Today is probably the most important day since the end of World War II.”

“Huh?”

“Today, Marktl celebrates Pope Benedict XVI, their son, by having a Mass with the bishop—the first Mass for Benedict in this town—and a celebration!”

“See? There’s the bishop now!”

Needless to say, Steve and I were besides ourselves. Here we were in small-town (er, I mean, village) Germany, watching a festival in the making. A festival put on for no other reason than to celebrate. It wasn’t for tourists. It wasn’t for money. It was what the village simply did to celebrate.

Now, this was enough for me. I was completely happy with the fact that I got to see amazing history and tradition, pure Germany if you will, before my very eyes. But God is nuts.

“Come, join the parade!” Steve and I were beckoned.

Ummmmm…. ok.

So, we joined the parade, which went around the town, and found ourselves filing into the church for mass. The mass I was going to have to leave early to make my 20:00 train was suddenly un-leave-able. I was in the middle of a crowd of 500—250 of which stood outside. Yes, I got into a mass for the village that even half of the village didn’t even get to attend. Ridiculous.

After a beautiful mass with the bishop, we followed our media friends as they followed the bishop. We flowed into a local tavern where “our” media took a few pictures of a table “reserved until the Pope visits. It’s for him.” As they took pictures, the owners offered us “media”—as Steve and I were now considered—free champagne. “Here, have a glass of our best!... on us!”

And God saw that it was goooooooood.

Again, this was enough for me. Village festival—pure and true, Mass with the bishop, free glass of champagne… I desired nothing else. But, God is ridiculous.

So, we leave the tavern and continue to follow as we are beckoned to do. The media follow the bishop and we follow them all. Into the local Beerhaus we go, lined up bishop to media. As the door opens, the warmth of the entire village awaiting inside greets us. A standing ovation. And as we are following the bishop, I could very easily imagine it being for us… even though it wasn’t.

So we follow….. right up to the table in the very front of the room. The table reserved right next to the bishop, the mayor, and all the other very important people.

I AM SITTING NEXT TO THE BISHOP AND THE MAYOR AT A SMALL-TOWN (er, village) CELEBRATION IN A SMALL-TOWN BEERHAUS DRINKING BEER, EATING SAUSAGE, LISTENING TO GERMAN MUSIC AND WATCHING GERMANS DANCE… ALL FROM MY FRONT-ROW-TABLE-OF-HONOR-EXCUSE-ME-BUT-WHO-THE-HECK-AM-I-BUT-A-FOREIGNER SEAT.

I mean, really! C’MON!

But, it’s all true. I drank beer next to the bishop of Bavaria and the Mayor of Marktl. I had front row seats for amazing German music and amazing German dancing (the stomp your heel on the ground, tap your hand with your foot, put your arms in the air kind—with a nod from National Lampoon’s European Vacation).

PURE GERMANY.

I didn’t drink a lot that night…. comparatively speaking. Haha, actually, I really didn’t have much. But it was a lot of fun—even though I could speak to no one.

Our media friends realized halfway through that we had—OOPS!—missed our train home and offered us (even before we asked) a place to stay. They had a flat back in Munich and drove us there (yay for driving on the Autobahn!!!), letting us crash on the floor. Early in the morning, we took the first train back to Altenstatt.

We arrived at 9am, just in time to help move Hans-Peter’s brother-in-law & wife out of their home. We had offered to do this before we left for Marktl. Ordinarily, this would have been a slog of a job. Moving someone out after a night of celebration, a poor sleep on the floor (much less a short sleep), and a long train ride home—this would be enough to vanquish any soldier. But not this soldier! WHERE’S THEM BOXES?

Now, as beautiful as Marktl was, this moving day was better. Far and away, hands down, and all other clichés… This day rocked. Hans-Peter, Steve, and I walked a couple blocks to his brother-in-law’s house… yes, just a couple of blocks. Altenstatt is cool like this: there aren’t more than 2,000 people who live there. And those that do are all family. Nearly all of Hans-Peter’s family is there and nearly all of Lucia’s family is there. They all grew up in the same town—some the same house—and they all go to the same church (which is the center of town). And with Munich just an hour away, they can work in the big city and come home to their roots—this is where they have been living for about 800 years. Family, Tradition, and God. Beautiful.

So we walk to the house, and meet all the guys of the two families. Because, oh yeah, when you’re family, you help out. So all of the men were loading up furniture and boxes. And since this is Altenstatt, the new home is only a couple blocks away. Also because this is Altenstatt, you don’t rent a moving-van. No, you use the grand-father’s farm tractor and the wagon attached. Load the baby up and go for a ride!

So we load the wagon up and drive the tractor a few blocks to the family barn. Now, this barn is the symbol of everything beautiful with Altenstatt. Here is where Hans-Peter and Lucia had their first kiss. Here is where Hans-Peter’s brother-in-law and his wife had their wedding reception. Here is where the kids jam in the shed to drums and a piano tucked away in the corner. Here is where the entire family gathers for parties. And here is where they run their carpentry shop. Amazing.

We begin to unload the wagon—and here I notice how “naturally” organized the Germans can be. They were impressed with us American’s willingness to help (and might I add, our “strength”). But, I was impressed with how they just naturally lined up for things and new what things needed to be moved and in what way. Very organized.

After a few trips like this, it neared 10:45 in the morning. As we were about to move another load, the grandmother of the family approached the house (from her house down the road, of course), carrying a tray of ham sandwiches. Mmmmmm. Break-time.

And, if you are in Germany and you are having a break from work, what do you do? Why, you drink beer!!! At 10:50 in the morning, I was drinking beer and laughing with a bunch of German guys, helping move their brother out of a house. I was part of their family. I was a German. And I was drinking beer at 10:50 in the morning??!?!

What was so beautiful about all of this was that the men were in such solidarity with one another. This was men truly being men: working hard, doing a good job, sharing some laughs, and some drinks, and just enjoying life. The kids were out in the neighbors’ yards, playing on the swings, laughing, dancing around in the green grass. And the women? They were no where to be found. I know that Lucia was at home, getting dinner ready for our return. And how awesome this was!!! Lucia didn’t mind cooking at all. And Hans-Peter didn’t mind lifting boxes at all. Doing such things made them happy—and were not suffocating roles. How amazing it is when a women is tender and a man is strong. And how ever more so when the family is a mix of this and the marriage a union of them! To see such a beautiful family and to see such a beautiful marriage (Hans-Peter and Lucia, married for 16 years, are sooooo IN LOVE!... I would swear that they were newlyweds!)—to see this is so beautiful. It fills me with hope and joy!

At about noon we came home and ate dinner with Lucia and Johannes and Katharina. A meal all together… wow! And the Spatzel we ate--- OH MY GOODNESS!!! I’m going to make this for you all someday. This is a dish that MUST be had by all. And yes, we had beer.

After lunch, we all piled into the family car (they have only one). And took off for the Alps—and part of the Romantic Road (I told Hans-Peter that I wanted to drive on it. And he responded: “Why?” I told him all about how it is in all the tour-books and how it looked pretty cool. “Well,” he began, “why don’t I show you something much better.”).

We drove for a few miles on the Romatische Strauss and then hit the Alps of southern Germany. We pulled off the road and to local golf course. Here you can see God’s Putting Green. (This picture is for my brother, Ed—way to go on that 77 and 78 over 36 holes, dude!).

And here I am in the “rough” by the clubhouse.

Which over looks the town… and the Alps…. on the Austrian side.

“So, you like the mountains?” Hans-Peter asked us as he took Lucia in his arms, watching with joy as his daughter, Katharina played in the fields of dandelions. Ummmm, yeah…. We like!

“Let me show you the Austrian Alps and some valleys, then.” So, into the car we climbed, flew down the back-roads of Bavaria, entered Austria, and began the ascent up one cool mountain.

One LONG ascent up one TALLLLL mountain. We stopped, took pictures, picked our jaws off of the ground, piled back into the car and careened down into the valley.

We’d see something we liked and pull the car over, take a picture, perhaps just gawk for a few moments. Then pile back in.

Some of us even put our heads out the windows and barked….. woof.

And some of us just couldn’t help but have our vocabulary disappear again into one rambling “wow.”

Near the end of our drive, we found an absolutely gorgeous lake at the bottom of a hill, which Katharina and I raced each other down, giggling all the way. In the background were towering mountains, a bright sun, and light, puffy clouds floating along in the warm April day.

The Hauser’s played together, laughing and enjoying God’s creation: mountains, lake, and each other.

And I couldn’t help but find it so incredibly beautiful. This cannot all be by chance. This feeling of beauty must be more than just a feeling and it must point to something more than just myself. There has to be a God. A good God. A God who is a beautiful family. A God who desires us to be in a beautiful family. A family that is love and that is so beautiful that the mountains, the lakes, and the clouds and the grass reflect their beauty.

If you’ve ever heard a child giggle with you, you know the love of God firsthand.

When we returned home after the ride through the mountains, Steve and I had to quickly depart for Rome. We ate a wonderful supper, full of traditional Weisswurste (oooh, so amazingly good!), pretzels, and—yes—beer.

And knowing that we loved the Spatzel so much, Lucia gave us her Spatzel-making instrument. “You won’t find these in the States,” she laughed. She is generously wonderful.

Hans-Peter and the kids (Johannes pictured here in the lower right, smiling as always), took us to the train station to watch us take off. And as they stood there awaiting our departure, they each had a smile on their face (that’s Hans-Peter’s brother-in-law in the yellow). They each were genuinely happy with us having visited and with having gotten to share a few days with them. On many occasions, they had told us, “It is good to see young people alive in the faith.” Well, here, I must repeat a similar sentiment: “It is so good to see a whole family united by and so in love with the faith.”

I have never before seen such genuinely happy kids, such a genuinely happy family, and such an in-love husband and wife. To be so united, in faith and in love, is to truly be the seeds of any joy. As our train slowly departed from this place, from this glimpse of how things should be, from heaven (one might say), I couldn’t help but get a little choked up. As they genuinely extended themselves in generosity and in love to me, I found that I had begun to love this family. I was going to miss them.

My comfort: “Christians never say goodbye.” And why do they never say "goodbye"? Well, if we truly believe what our faith tells us about life after death, then we will certainly see each other again. May God grant that we all see each other again in heaven.

But, I’m hoping to see you again a little sooner than later.