Herzschmerzen

Hot. 

That's kind of all I can think. 

Sophie and I are in Florida with the Juneau Jumpers at the national competition. I haven't been out of Juneau in 7 months so it's good to get out every now and then for a reality check on America. There are a lot of Applebees and Golden Corrals outside Alaska.

I've brought some reading material with me since I knew there would be quite a bit of down time. For the pool and short waits I have a mindless mystery that I can pick up and put down without much effort. And then I also brought Herz Schmerzen.

I wanted to immerse myself in German again before we travel in August so I grabbed one of the books that's been sitting on my shelves for a while. It was given to me by someone who thought it would be an easy read for my level of German.

What I love about the German language is how it captures an experience in a word; often it is a very long word. This isn't quite true for Schmetterling, which means butterfly without any of the grace and beauty.

It is true for Herzschmerzen. Herz is heart. Schmerzen is pain, hurt, ache, broken. We know the word broken heart; it's just that Herzschmerzen sounds like what I feel when my heart hurts.

The book is easy reading, but not light reading. Unfortunately, I am able to understand most of the German and it is a book about interviews with children who escaped the war in Yugoslavia. 
The interviews are full of heart break. 
Many of which flood into my brain as impersonal TV news images. Images that didn't seem believable in the 90s coming out of Europe so we often ignored them.

I find myself thinking of Syria and all the other places I'm too ignorant or "busy" to think of the families fleeing. All those refugees who still know the heartbreak of war.

But here I am at a jump rope competition where there have been plenty of tears and Herzschmerzen. These kids, the hundreds who are here, have trained for countless hours and in a minute, all dreams are crushed with a miss or nerves. I don't want to discount that sorrow in any way. What is weird is how I want to respond. I want to fix, buffer, or even consider bailing on such risks because watching your flesh and blood cry hurts more than anything I know.

Then I remember how important heart break is. Obviously not war and having your dad's leg blown off when he goes back to save your teddy bear. That interview was horrible, but digging through pain, guilt, and disappointment gives us the empathy to take the sorrow of the world seriously. 
Sometimes you have to just sit with heartbreak and let it wash over you until you can catch your breath. 
Sometimes it makes you push harder. 
Sometimes it keeps life in perspective. 

I'm not sure folks always learn a lesson or come out better, but often we come out more human and hopefully a little more aware of how painful life can be. Coming out of heartbreak helps us realize people do come out on the other side of pain. The heart is never the same after Herzschmerzen but there is another German word that might be helpful. Versöhnen. It means to reconcile, make friends again. 

I don't think you ever get over or move on from heartbreak, but you figure out how to reconcile to a new way of being in this world. You make friends again with your own being, with a changed reality, with a world where there is plenty of pain, guilt and disappointment. 

I often think of the sticker I have in my office. Life is short so tell people you love them, but it is also scary so shout it in German.

Moonstruck

I just finished watching Moonstruck with my girls. 

There were no guys at home so it seemed like a good time to watch this hilarious romance with Cher and Nicolas Cage. I love this movie for many reasons, but one reason is the plethora of great quotes:

"Old man you give those dogs another piece of my food, I'll kick you till your dead."

"Someday you'll drop dead and I'll come to your funeral in a red dress!"

"Love don't make things nice - it ruins everything. It breaks your heart. It makes things a mess. We aren't here to make things perfect. The snowflakes are perfect. The stars are perfect. Not us. We are here to ruin ourselves and to break our hearts and love the wrong people and die" 

I didn't realize there was such a death theme until I strung all the quotes together. It's not action packed and wouldn't do well in 3-D, but we all laughed, smiled, and cried a little bit (maybe the tears were just me).

It got me thinking about all my favorite lines (they might not be correct, but they are what I remember without looking them up)

Blues Brothers:

There's 106 miles to Chicago, we've got a full tank of gas, half a pack of cigarettes, it's dark out, and we're wearing sunglasses.

When Harry Met Sally:

You look like a normal person, but actually you are the angel of death.

Gone With the Wind:

I'll think about it tomorrow; after all tomorrow is another day.

Talladega Nights:

Old man, I'm gonna come at you like a spider monkey.

I have a good chunk of Monty Python movies memorized and strangely enough some of The Exorcist. 

If you know me at all, then you know it is dangerous to take me to a movie theater especially if it is scary. The Exorcist is scary, but there was a cute boy with a mullet in college who went in to see it so I dragged my college roommate in with me to watch it also. Mistake upon mistake. We hid behind a chair watching him and listening to the movie. The only redeeming part is how often some of those quotes come in handy.

It's funny to think about what you have memorized. There are so many weird quotes from such random sources wandering around in my head. We've been memorizing the 23rd Psalm in church. It seems like a handy poem to have wandering around in my mind, as well as hymns, fragments of Bible verses, books, conversations, lyrics and lots of movie quotes. I had a professor who often said something like, "you'll never be bored if you have memories."

Chocolate Lilies

I love Chocolate Lilies. Don't assume this makes me a plant person and start telling me about flowers and such. I'm not and I'm not listening. Sorry. I try. But it's like birds. I once made the mistake of commenting at a park in Ohio how beautiful the song birds were and the guide gave me a CD of 101 birdsongs. It was very sweet and I feel guilty to this day for not caring.

But a Chocolate Lily is the essence of my being. They are delicate and sweet swaying gently in the breeze. The name offers promises of pure goodness and beauty. Just like me, right?

I wish blogs had a scratch and sniff possibility. Because it is the scent of the Chocolate Lily that makes them so precious. 

They smell like dog poop.

And someday when I grow up I won't tell every guest we walk with how amazing they smell so I can laugh at their disgust. 

They are gross. 

It seems slightly cruel that something named Chocolate Lily makes you gag when you put it anywhere near your face.

But, what makes Chocolate Lilies a bit more fabulous besides the tension of their name and their putrid smell is their edibility. Don't eat the flower. You don't want it too close to you, but if you dig up the plant there is a ball of what looks like rice. This can be eaten raw or cooked to sustain you for a good long time.

So, you have a plant with a delectable name, nasty scent, and life sustaining capacity. What is there not to love?

When I look, taste, and smell them I can't help but think of Simul Justus et Peccator. I'm sure that jumped to your brain also. It's one of Luther's slogans, "Simultaneously justified and sinning." Or Saint and Sinner. 

We always live in the tension of the beautiful and the odoriferous; the edifying and repulsing. 

I find when I get busy, I forget about this tension and fall deeply into my nastiness or my supremacy. I begin to think how much easier everything would be if folks would operate in this world the way I want them to. I end up in that place either out of bitterness or arrogance. It's funny that they both end in the same pit.

Shooting Star. Also a cool flower.

I need my walks in the woods, my prayers, and my quiet time because that's where I observe the Chocolate Lily. That's where I gag as I walk through a field of them and remember simul justus et peccator. That's where I get to rest always living in grace.

Toilet Paper

I am strangely obsessed with toilet paper.

I try not to be judgmental, but I definitely judge people and places by their toilet paper. 

Airport toilet paper tends to be the worst. National Airport has lovely toilet paper and Dallas has the best music in the bathroom so the tissue paper is a little more acceptable.

I really don't understand the new trend for bigger, fatter rolls. They don't fit on the toilet paper holder and I end up wasting half of it trying to get it to roll right. 

I suppose I should just be thankful for toilet paper because it was pretty scarce in Tanzania. I tried to keep some extra paper in my pocket because I like having my left hand available for human contact. 

The most horrifying moment was when I suddenly got sick at a fellow student's house. If you've never heard the sound of violent diarrhea reverberate through the house, then you are a lucky person. So there I am squatting over this hole trying not to think about what lives in the hole or the other people in the house, but thankful I had toilet paper. That wasn't actually helpful because when I finally could exit, out host began the long production of preparing water for me to wash my hands with and I told him not to worry about it. It was quite the extensive process. He looked at me with the greatest horror I've ever seen and only later did I realize why he never shook my hand again.

I probably talk about poop and toilet paper more than is appropriate in polite company, but I do think these aspects of life are as vital to our faith as all the tidy stuff, if not more so. As my doctor said, "You can tell a lot about a person by their poop." 

I love that there is a Jewish prayer to honor the functioning of the digestive system, "Asher Yatzar" is to be recited after you have a healthy bowel movement.

Blessed are You, Hashem, our G-d, King of the universe, Who formed man with wisdom and created within him many openings and many hollows (cavities). It is obvious and known before Your Throne of Glory that if but one of them were to be ruptured or if one of them were to be blocked it would be impossible to survive and to stand before You (even for a short period of time). Blessed are You, Hashem, Who heals all flesh and acts wonderously." 

Praising God even in the midst of what we consider our shame and waste. Just something to think about.