Phil RedBeard

Not Some Conjurer of Cheap Tricks

Well, I have, and have been using, my brand new Apple Magic Mouse. I won’t attempt to explain the inner workings, but it is really really cool.

To afford it I sold my second brand new (formerly known as) Mighty Mouse on Ebay. I say second because this is the second replacement Mighty Mouse that I have acquired from Apple, courtesy of my iMac’s Apple Care.

While the Mighty Mouse was a technological wonder when it arrived on the computing scene, it contained a hold-over from previous generations: the scroll ball. Instead of a scroll wheel that went up, and then down, the scroll ball was capable of 360° movement. This seemed like a new idea on a mouse, but really, it was a very old idea. Before some genius applied laser tracking to mice, they literally rolled around on a ball. All Apple did was put the ball on top of the mouse, and use it for scrolling. Honestly, I don’t know why no one thought of that before, or tried to market it. However, back to my replacement mice, the ball-on-top was prone to the same problem as the ball-underneath: gumming. Rolling the ball around on your desk, or even mousepad, invited the ball to pick up dust, dirt, grime, and whatever hangs around on your computer station. Rolling your fingers around the scroll ball on the Mighty Mouse had the same effect. The only difference is those old mice used to be really easy to clean. The scroll ball on the bottom was very easy to remove, clean, and replace. The scroll ball on the top was completely integrated into the casing of the mouse, and only by literally breaking it open could you clean it. So, I had not one, but two Mighty Mice replaced because eventually the ball would quit sensing the scrolling I was trying to do.

I wanted for some time to replace my latest gummed-up Mighty Mouse, but had been hearing rumors of a new mouse from Apple, and so waited. Sure enough, the Magic Mouse was released a few weeks ago. I immediately called Apple Care, and negotiated for a new mouse. Secretly I hoped that they would note that I had a wireless Mighty and out of the goodness of their hearts upgrade me to a Magic (all Magic Mice are wireless) but alas, they must have a few old Mightys in storage. However, my good friend the global garage sale came to my aid, and some dude in Manhattan bought my Mighty.

Thus in the need for a mouse, I went to the Apple Store and ordered a Magic Mouse. It arrived a few days later. After the obligatory install of new software and a reboot, I was up and running, or should I say, gliding. The Magic Mouse glides. Having used a variety of mice in my technological career, this is the smoothest mouse I have ever used. It sits on two parallel runners on the bottom of the mouse, and however they are designed, they make the mouse fairly float across my pad. Add to this a decent amount of weight built into the mouse (the Mighty Mouse felt a lot lighter) and the movement is the best you could hope for. Also, they say that the laser sensor is among the best ever designed and at least to my mind, the pointing seems more precise, but this could just be my imagination.

The mouse is precisely symmetrical (or would be except for the Apple icon). It is no bigger front to back or right to left. It is slimmer than the Mighty Mouse, and a tad shorter. It is also about 3/4 the height. You might think that this screws up ergonomics, and admittedly I know nothing about that, but it feels great in my hand. My arm-wrist-hand is flatter and in more of a straight line when I use this mouse, and I don’t have as much of an incline using the Magic as I did using the Mighty. People with really big hands might have trouble with it, but for us average folk, it shouldn’t be a problem.

But, to my favorite feature…the surface!! There is NO scroll wheel, NO scroll ball (“only a ray shield prevents beaming!” um…) because the Magic of the Magic Mouse is in the multi-touch surface. Using the same technology available on Macbook/Pro touch pads, and the iPhone/iTouch surfaces, the Mouse senses where your finger is and what it is doing, and interprets actions from your phalange motion. A sweep of a finger down the mouse surface scrolls. A click anywhere (literally, anywhere, front or back or middle) on the left is a left click, same with right. The scroll is accelerated, so if you swipe, it scrolls fast, if you slide, it scrolls slower. And it is still 360° scrollable. Finally, a two finger left/right sweep advances forward or backward in apps that have a forward backward (Safari, iPhoto, etc).

Finally!!!

No gummed up scroll ball. No only up-down wheels. Unhindered, effortless, magical scrolling. Always. This is by far my favorite part of the Magic Mouse, though it is all amazing.

In my mind, this is the best human/machine interfacing device since the keyboard. It is sleek, sexy, functional, state-of-the-art, and on the cutting bleeding edge of today’s best (for this type of hardware) technologies in a single piece of hardware. If you like the Mighty Mouse, you should love the Magic of Apple’s new Mouse.

I do.

The Game of Baseball Part One: Time

The second game of the 2009 World Series is going to begin in just over an hour. I thought I would take this opportunity to vent/respond to some things I have been hearing lately, mostly negative comments on the game of baseball itself.

I begin with a few generalities. Baseball is a game of endurance. Everything in the game is built around this fact. The season itself is 162 games scheduled over 180 days. The game is comprised of 9 innings, during which each team has a chance to bat until they suffer 3 outs. It takes 3 strikes to get out, unless you hit the ball, and get out in the course of the play. Generally speaking, the game takes about 2 hours to play, and less than that is considered really fast (and is probably a game without a score). The fastest game on record is 51 minutes. There is no time limit for a baseball game, and unless there are extenuating circumstances, the game cannot end in a tie. The winning team is not only the one who scores one more run than the opposing team, but also is the team that outlasts their opponent.

Once a team wins the regular season, and advances to the post season, they must play several rounds of playoff series. The Division Series is the best of 5 games. The League Championship and the World Series are best of 7 series. To be the best, you must be the best consistently over a long period of time. It is grueling and it is challenging.

Thus, I am confused when people complain that the game is too long. I assume they mean that a particular game they want to watch is too long, and usually they mean a playoff game, because the majority of fans who watch games during the season either 1) don’t care about the length or 2) are ok watching part of the game. Usually if you complain about it being too long it is because you would want to watch the entire game, but don’t feel you have the time.

Before I address this, some more numbers: technically a football game is only an hour long (4 15 minute quarters), but with timeouts, side changes, and other considerations most football games take between 2 and 3 hours…the same as your average baseball game. Similarly, technically a basketball game is only 48 minutes long (4 12 minute quarters) but with time outs and other considerations most games take around 2 hours to play…about the same as a fast baseball game. And, for my international friends, a game of soccer is technically an hour and a half (2 45 minute halfs) but with a half time and other considerations, a soccer game could last 2 hours or more. Again, like a fast baseball game.

Now, at least on Sunday afternoon and Monday evening, alot of Americans will watch at least 1 football game, lasting around 2.5 hours. On Sunday, some fans will take in two games, taking up around 5 hours of their time. Add to this consideration pre and post game shows, and you’ve got close to 7 hours. And a really long baseball game is about 3, 3 and 1/2 hours.

Now, for baseball’s playoffs, the game tends to take a little longer, mostly because the commercial break is longer. I defy anyone to prove that baseball has longer commercials than Monday Night Football, or the SuperBowl though, which sometimes is just as much about the commercials as it is the game (Bud. Weis. Err.)

So, why the annoyance over the length of baseball games? The only conclusion I can come to is that, if one really has something more important to do, or kids to care for, or whatever, the game can seem longer than it is. Basketball and Soccer players are almost always running. Football players run for short bursts, and stand around in between. Baseball is focused on three men: the pitcher, the catcher, and the batter trying to cut in on their fun. This can give the illusion of alot of down time. The pitcher throws. The batter stands there. The catcher throws the ball back. The pitcher looks in to the catcher. The batter stands out. The pitcher looks in again. Checks the runner at first. The pitcher pitches. The batter swings and hits a ball into the stands, foul. In reality, it isn’t that long of a time. I have heard comments to the effect that “they should stop the batters from stepping out of the batter’s box, and stop the pitchers from stepping off the mound” and that this would speed up the game. Hardly. This interaction isn’t what takes time in a baseball game.

Most of the time in baseball is taken up when a team is actually hitting the ball and having a good inning, offensively. In last night’s game, for instance, the Phillies loaded the bases and looked fairly dangerous, in the top of the first inning. They eventually made 3 outs before scoring, but total half inning time was about 12 minutes. The bottom of the first, in which the Yankees did nothing, took about 4 minutes, a third of the time. And nothing much happened until the eighth inning, due to alot of pitchers pitching and hitters failing to hit, for both teams, except for this one guy who hit a home run, but it takes about a minute to run around the bases, three if you are Manny Ramirez, so this didn’t add much to the length of the inning. The Phillies added two more runs in the top of the eighth inning and took about 16 minutes to do it. The bottom of the eighth clocked in at about 5 minutes.

My point is this: all the supposed time that is being wasted by batters and pitchers is insignificant compared to the whopping time being wasted in innings when stuff actually happens. The Phillies took about 45 minutes to score 6 runs. The Yankees took about 15 minutes to score 1 run. The other two hours were full of 8 really quick innings, the average length of which was all of 10 minutes (5 for each half). I don’t see how a whole lot of time could be saved there, really.

So, my conclusion on the time aspect of baseball: it takes about the same amount of time to watch a baseball game as it does any other sport. Those that complain don’t really like baseball that much. Put this in terms of watching a chick flick with your girl instead of T2 and you see what am getting at.

As Game Two is about to start, I will save “Black and White Blindness: The Ump Factor” for next time. Play Ball!

Literary Non-Fiction

I am about to start my night class for this semester, Literary Non-Fiction Workshop, to give it it’s full title, and we are discussing the slippery nature of what is “non-fiction”, or more correctly, what is “literary” non-fiction.

On the outset, it seems painfully obvious what “non-fiction” is. Anything that isn’t fiction, right? Well, yes. And literary non-fiction seems almost as non-sequiturian. If something is literary, that just means it is a form of writing, right?

That kind of reasoning might work for the normal person at home, but for someone like me: the “English Major” at a slightly-stuffy high brow aspiring liberal arts college, than that reasoning definitely does not work.

To begin, “literary” is a form of writing, a classification. It is a separation from journalism, and “dry” reporting (though I am well aware that some journalism is very captivating, as Richard Gere says in Runaway Bride “Journalism is great literature…in a hurry!”). There is also memoir and autobiography, which are not the same thing. Biography, and the collections of letters or other correspondence. Oh yeah, and lumped in there are technical journals and other writing that certainly isn’t fiction, but probably isn’t literary either.

And, I should leave it at that, as I haven’t explored the topic further, and class is about to begin, and since there are only seven of us I can’t get away with ignoring the prof.

Ca$h for Clunker$ is Not for Me

Being in the middle of the complex process involved in purchasing a vehicle, I feel I can now, at least a little bit, comment on the government’s Cash for Clunkers program.

First, and my biggest problem with the program, is that in order to get a credit for your clunker you must purchase a NEW car. USED cars do not apply. Now, I understand that the idea is to get rid of older, less fuel efficient and more pollutive cars, but it seems that the program considers any car manufactured before 2009 to be a clunker. I am a college student, and cannot afford both tuition and car payments on a new car. I can only afford to purchase a used car outright, and hopefully for only a few thousand dollars. However, given that most new cars lose several thousand dollars in value as soon as you drive it off the lot, that usually makes them cheaper alternatives to purchase under the moniker “used” than would be a “new” car. As far as I know, we have been making relatively fuel efficient and cleaner cars since the turn of the millennium. What I really want to know is this: why can I not trade in my 1995 “clunker” (which I can afford) and purchase a used car manufactured after the year 2000?

In particular, I have been searching for a Jeep to purchase. My father owned a Wrangler at one point, and I have very nostalgic feelings about Jeeps. Furthermore, I don’t intend to drive my Jeep farther than six miles a day, simply needing transport back and forth to college for classes, and occasionally to the local Giant store for groceries, so fuel efficiency isn’t a terribly big deal to me. However, I have found that most used Jeeps made before 2000 are within my price range of $3500, that is, if you can find someone willing to part with their Jeep. Most of these Jeeps are 87-91’s, which, unfortunately, is within the Cash for Clunkers timeframe. If any of these owners wish to trade in their old Jeeps for credit towards a new one, my available pool evaporates. Unfortunately, my troubles are not over. Those Jeeps that are made after about 1998 that are available on the used car circuit are likely to still be in condition and mileage to make them priced around $6-7000, which is almost twice what I can afford, that is if they are being sold at all, because they are likely to be more fuel efficient, and still owned by somebody because they aren’t clunkers, just a few years old.

Here I come to my point: if the Cash for Clunkers program applied to used cars manufactured after 2000, I could indeed afford a used 2001 Jeep for $7000 because the program would net me at least $3500, which combined with my own budget would allow me to get a vastly cleaner and more fuel efficient Jeep, but in my price range. And isn’t that the point? Instead of driving a 1995, or worse, a 1988 Jeep, I would have one at least 15 years newer, but without having to pay for a brand new vehicle.

In general, I like the idea of an incentive to help people decide to drive cars better for the environment and that conserve fossil fuel usage, but that doesn’t demand the purchase of something new, or the total destruction of the old.

However, I am very glad to have found, and be taking possession of this afternoon, a 1995 Jeep Grand Cherokee that has a new engine and transmission and will (hopefully) last me a few years until I can trade it in for perhaps a post-2000 Jeep, which by that time will be old enough to fall within my budget, that is, if they haven’t all been wantonly destroyed.

And, let’s say nothing of my fiancee’s 1992 Toyota Camry which is still getting around 29 mpg, which isn’t the best, but is still twice what “clunkers” must be under in order to qualify for the upper tier of credit ($4500). Why destroy such a fuel efficient and affordable car (she got hers used for $2300)?

I just simply do not understand destroying valuable vehicles, and in the process, an entire segment of the economy, for as we all know the Used Car market is an old and honored American tradition. We may be cleaning up the air, or at least, not polluting if further, but who will care if they are out of work or unable to afford transportation?

A New Step

Hello There!

Last week I took a new, rather large, step in my life: I put down a security deposit on a small apartment. This will be my first independent dwelling place, and I am very excited (though not as excited as my fiancee…more on that later).

It is a one bedroom apartment, actually located beneath a large house about 2.5 miles from the campus of Messiah College. It has a rather large bathroom (and it is private!! which, after 4 years of sharing a bathroom with college guys, is a Really Big Deal) and a large, spacious kitchen. The bedroom is about average sized, and the living room is slightly small, and all-in-all it is a terrific place to live.

I will move in around the 15th of May, and live there for year. Hannah, my fiancee, will move in the middle of December, but won’t start living there until we get married January 3, 2010. This would be why she is soo excited! Hannah is realizing that this will be our first “home” together, and where we will spend the first 5 months of our married lives. She literally bounced all the way home, and couldn’t keep a large smile off her face. It was very cute!

The grounds around the house are large and beautiful, with two weeping willow trees and many shrubs and flowers. A small creek runs along the edge of the property. Next to my apartment is a recreation room, which my landlords have graciously allowed me access to, which includes a pool table which is also a table tennis table, and a treadmill for exercising. This is a huge plus.

Also, this apartment is at a fair price, especially considering that it includes utilities, cable television, and internet access.

I am very excited, and cannot wait to move it. I praise my Father God for his provision and blessing.

This will be another big step for me, and I feel ready to make it!

The Rains of Spring

Hello readers!

It has been awhile since I have posted on this blog, and I therefore apologize. Ironically, I spend alot of my time these days writing, but writing poems for my Workshop class, and writing essays for my Advanced writing class, and writing reports for my Ethics classes, and not writing insightful blog posts.

Lately, spring has been sluggishly arriving to central PA, with a few warm and sunny days interspersed with many rainy and overcast cool ones. I don’t mind, I enjoy rain, both literally and physically, but also metaphorically and spiritually. The rains outside my window run off the top of my dorm, down my window pane, and out across the brick and concrete of the campus. It trickles across the branches and drops off the leaves and sparkles on the green green grass. It washes clean the grime and dust that collects across our hives of rooms and classes.

Last night, I experienced a rain of a different sort: I had a good cry. I consider myself to be a real man and crying isn’t something that I do often, but once in a while some things just get to an overwhelming point. Hannah came by, and we sat in the room and cried together. After a bit of time passed, I needed to hear a song that often encourages my heart, and one that I had not played in a long time: Ready for the Storm by the late great Rich Mullins. The song talks about a lonely sailor at sea during a storm, desperately following the dim light of a lighthouse, and finding out that, after the storm, he was near to shore and safe the entire night, and had “no reasons to be frightened.” After that, I listened to a great many of Rich’s songs. After about an hour, my heart was uplifted, and I felt cleansed and refreshed.

Rich Mullins, known by many as a “ragamuffin” (n: person who is poor, tattered), wandered around most of his life, and sang about the trials of life while praising God through strange Scriptural references. He was on the outside, the fringe, and the edges of popular Christian thought, but he really had a notion of what it meant to follow God and really serve him.

Today, I actually spent most of the day sleeping. I think my body and mind got so weary that I needed to recharge. And it was raining again, and was just one of those days that want to curl up next to a fire and read. I am thankful for the opportunity to slow down and renew.

I feel like a ragamuffin, wandering about and working hard to understand life, God, and the universe. Most days I can’t explain my faith, even to myself, but I do know that God is worth following, in spite of my doubts and confusions. Some days, I enjoy a nice rain shower to wash the stress away, and make things new, clean, and young: like a spring time that creeps upon a wearied winter world.

I am the Prophet : Love

Love: Abandoned baby kicking on the side of the road…(1)

Hosea was a man called by God specifically to love. “Go, marry a woman…” (2) was God’s call to the prophet, and one he performed faithfully. His love story is intertwined with God’s allegorical love story with the nation of Israel, as told by Ezekiel (3):

Once upon a time, in a faraway land, there was a baby. This baby was born to an Amorite father, and a Hittite mother, but they abandoned her along the side of the path. The baby wept and screamed, still covered in blood, and fluid, naked for the world to see. People walked by, and heard the wails of the child, but none cared, none pitied, none even stopped to cast a glance in the direction of the shrieks. Compassion fled, and sympathy turned away. Abhorred, this child was cast away.

But, a man, walking through the field, suddenly stopped. The child, now weakening in the elements and sun’s harsh glare, was barely able to whimper. The blood had crusted to her body, and dust was caked to mud in the fluids. The man rushed with gentle steps to the baby’s side. His eyes welled with tears, and he knelt over the small, fragile form. His lips began to move, and a whisper was heard, “Live!” All the urgency, all the power, all the will of the master of the universe was embodied in that command. “Live!” he commanded again, this time in a strong clear voice, stretching out a hand over the baby’s brow.

Taking the baby home, he cared for her, and gave her everything she needed, everything she wanted. The little baby girl grew into the most beautiful woman in the land. The man passing by one day, saw her anew, and loved her with not just the love of a caretaker, but the love of a husband. He rushed with passionate steps to her side, and spread his cloak over her. He washed her, and anointed her, and dressed her in the most stunning clothes. He covered her with gold, and precious stones, so that her natural beauty was enhanced, and she outshone the stars.

But this rags-to-riches princess betrayed her true love, and went into the markets, brazenly displaying her beautiful body, and selling her affections to anyone who paused. So lusting was she that she took her jewels, her gold, her expensive clothes and bartered them for sex, paying her lovers. She took her sustenance, given by her husband, and used it to feed her partners.

If that were not enough wickedness in the face of undying love, and rescue from certain death, she took the sons and daughters born in the marriage, and sacrificed them to the heathen gods, in the fire of ash of darkest evil. What then were her whorings? She no longer remembered her beginnings, and the babe covered in blood and dust of so long ago.

It was in the height of her flagrant wantonness that her husband had his fill, and stretched out his hand against her. He cut off her support, and gave her up to be raped and robbed. He wept bitter tears, for her longed only to love her, in passion and compassion, but she would not take his selfless offerings. He cried out to her, “My love, I gave you all! You were to stay faithful, not spend your beauty on anyone who chanced by! I was your husband; I loved you!” But he had no choice: he brought lawsuit against her, and judged her as an adulteress and a murderess. He destroyed completely her whore houses and her beds of lust. And then he left, heart shattered.

Many years later, the woman, now ashamed and utterly destitute, sat by the road with nothing at all. Silent tears streamed down her cheeks. A man passed by, but she did not glance at him, she had long since abandoned her licentious ways. But the man had stopped, and was staring at her. When, after many moments, she dared cast her eyes up to him, she saw the face of her husband. He too was crying, and held his arms out to her. He gathered her to himself, and restored her as his wife, and forgave her evil.

Hosea married a prostitute, and had children with her (4). A few years later, his wife returned to prostitution, leaving her devoted husband and children. At God’s request, Hosea went, and found her, and re-married her. Imagine the heartache, the devastation, the worry and the confusion of a husband who does everything to care, support, and love a wife who leaves him, and shares the most sacred physical act of marriage with complete strangers for love. Imagine going and finding her, and trying to love her again. Issues of trust, resentment, heartache would threaten daily civility, and Hosea’s trust in a sovereign God must have been a constant question mark upon his soul.

Gomer, Hosea’s wife was not quite as evil as Ezekiel portrays God’s bride, but her betrayal was real. Not just a work of fiction to stir up the emotions, when she left Hosea she shattered his heart. What devotion to his wife, and to God, Hosea must have had, to endure such personal turmoil as a prophet! His eyes surely wept God’s tears as a grieving husband.

Notes :
1. Michael Card Lyrics
2. Hosea 1:2
3. Ezekiel 16
4. Hosea 1

I am the Prophet: Introduction

This is a look at the prophets of Ancient Israel, as discovered through the Hebrew Old Testament, in six parts…

Part One Introduction:

How do you see an invisible God? How do you interact with a spirit you cannot touch? God has emotions, and a voice, but how can you experience that emotion, and how do you hear the voice of God?

This question plagued the children of Israel. As a fledgling nation, no bigger than a large family, the patriarchs directly interacted with God. After four generations, they found themselves enslaved in Egypt without a God. The deliverer Moses then stepped into the role of proxy to God through the wilderness wanderings on the way back to the promised homeland. After the reconquest of Canaan, the Hebrew people again lost sight of God through a series of semi-king judges and into the establishment of the Israelite Kingdom. To answer this loss of vision, God ordained the prophets, after the tradition of Moses, to be His physical presence, to show His emotion, and to speak His words. The prophets became the being and essence of God in the nation of Israel.

There is an ancient Asian proverb which states: “You cannot love without knowing pleasure; you cannot be happy without knowing sorrow; you need to know all of them to know one”(1) and I think this truth is evident in the great love story told through the ages by the prophets of God. The prophets exhibited the emotions of an intensely personal God to a wayward nation.

Michael Card in his song entitled “The Prophet” references many of the ancient prophets, and portrays their deep emotional frustration, “I am the prophet, and I smolder and burn…won’t you listen to me? I sorrow in His anger; my eyes weep His tears” (2) These man of ancient faith struggled mightily to bear the emotions of an awesome God.

In portraying the interactions of the primary emotions of life (love pleasure sorrow and happiness) I will personify them through the lives of seven prophets, six of whom were contemporaries, and across the backdrop of the fall of Jerusalem and the exile to Babylon, and demonstrate them to be the multi-faceted emotions of God displayed in humanity.

Notes

(1) As referenced by director Jieho Lee according to his film The Air I Breathe

(2) Michael Card Lyrics

A Meaning in Life

The pond ripples and the marsh reeds drift in the breeze. This from the same wind that pushes the clouds far above. To the west, the sun sinks dying, burning, igniting the sky with orange and tinting the heavens with deep purple.

Unconcerned with it all, the swans wander the surface of the pond aimlessly, white, and stark against the gathering shadow of night.

Monstrous supercells lurk across the expanse above, waiting for a time for unleashing and storm. Gales whip between the buildings, rushing across the grass, bending green to their will, catching an end of scarf or tail of coat, and tossing them high.

Unconcerned with it all, the swans wander the surface of the pond aimlessly, white, and stark against the gathering shadow of night.

A dog barks dangerously into the encroaching dark, and cars, as armored ants scurry the neglected streets, in fain straining sickly yellow light into the night. From shrouded lounges, students stare into the ending day, searching for a meaning in life.

Unconcerned with it all, the swans wander the surface of the pond aimlessly, white, and stark against the gathering shadow of night.

The buildings across the pond are peeling, and worn. They are tired and weary of the world, and yet they stand. Fading graffiti decorates their walls, painting sad faces beneath broken panes. A bit of dust wails, whipped into zephyr-hood, and scatters into the prevailing winds to settle back to the beaten path.

Unconcerned with it all, the swans wander the surface of the pond aimlessly, white, and stark against the gathering shadow of night.

Land of My Exile

I hear Russian through my window, rising from the street below. Students are walking by, to and from class. Lithuanian, Ukrainian, and Albanian I hear in my room on a regular basis, and I encounter several other languages if I stroll through my dorm…or through the Klaipeda city streets. When I go to the Orthodox church, beneath the tall spires and domes, looking up at the priests I could hear Polish, depending on which church I am in.

I go to the store, called IKI meaning “see you later”, and the packages are in Lithuanian, or Russian, or sometimes something else…rarely in English. I select what I want by looking at the picture. The cashier greets me, and I do not know what she says. After I pay, and receive my change, I usually respond “Achu” meaning “Thank you” and go my way, arms full.

I feel alone, separated here. I am learning the language, becoming familiar with the customs, but I am a man apart: I am in exile here. It is an exile because I am completely removed from the environment that is comfortable to me, that I grew up in, that I know best. Exile because I am living so far from home, from family, from where I usually see God.

I find it interesting that the root idea of the word, which we get from the Latin by way of Old French, is the idea of a “wanderer.” Certainly I feel like a wanderer here…having recently visited Latvia and Estonia and soon will be visiting a small corner of Russia. I am moving, seeing, experiencing, living.

The Old Testament of the Bible tells how the entire nation of Israel was forced into exile for their generations of disobedience of God. They were deported to Babylon for over 70 years, and most of the nation never returned. Here in the Baltics I have learned that the Soviet Russians exiled Lithuanians by the thousands to Siberia, and few ever came home.

What is the purpose of my exile? I have not disobeyed God, at least not as Israel did. I am not being oppressed by a Communist regime. Mine is an exile of being; to learn: about other countries, ways of life…and myself; to grow, for that is the direct result of learning. One cannot truly learn without growing. To mature, for I am still a boy, awkwardly being a man. In seeing who I am from different perspectives, like viewing my reflection in foreign shop windows, layers of vision are added to my sight. In experiencing God in totally different contexts, like standing in churches I would never have entered before, dimension is added to my faith. In being transplanted into Lithuanian soil, like living in a foreign city, I branch out in ways I never thought possible. In losing comfort, familiarity, friends, and family, like in being exiled, I mature in the wake of those losses.

Sometimes it takes exile, a crucible of life, to grow a man.