Croeso i Gymru: Welcome to Wales

The bus ride to Aberystwyth University allowed me to get quite a few pictures of the Welsh countryside.

Here's a quick tour:

Here's a pretty clear shot of a field with some sheep. I didn't ever get any clear shots of sheep, but in case you were wondering, they do have them.

There were little streams or rivers running through the countryside. A lot of them had alterations.

Much of the ride, the view was blocked by foliage, so here's a bit of what it really looked like.

Here's a shot of the hills along with some more streams.

There were some coniferous and deciduous forests.

It was a bit cloudy and rainy on the first day.

This here looks like a slightly more elevated version of the Flint Hills in Kansas. <3

We passed some logging along the way. There were also some villages and small houses, but I wasn't able to get any shots of those.

The next week or so was filled with me exploring the town and the campus, shopping, and getting paperwork and some introductory lectures out of the way. 

Most of the shops are little one-room establishments at the side of the street, though there are quite a few larger ones too. I saw this and thought it ought to be shared. That's a uke with the Welsh flag superimposed on it.

This is the Old College. It has some of the music and art programmes in it, and it's down by the shore. Apparently, it's going to have some of the archives moved to it in the next year or two as well.

This is the ruins of a castle that was destroyed in the English Civil War.

Here's the view of one of the pier businesses and some buildings up the hill.

A view of the beach.

This is up by the castle. I didn't make time to read up on it yet, but I will eventually.

This is a panorama of the coast taken by one of the other international students.

This is a shot of town and the ocean from the Arts Centre.

The entrance to campus and an example of the hills I'll be walking for the next year. The National Library of Wales is down this hill and to the left, then down another hill and to the left again. If you don't take the second left and keep going down the hill for another twenty minutes, you'll be in the heart of Aberystwyth.

I'm excited to make this place my home for the next year as I study Archive Administration. I'll be doing a module that includes Latin and Medieval and Post-Medieval Paleography. I'll keep the blog updated as much as I can.

In love, from my desk at Aberystwyth,

Justus

From the New World: Thoughts about Wales and Anecdotes of My Trip

     One never overcomes the fear of new things. Whether, the fear is specific to a certain type of new, or left to a general anxiety regarding anything new, each person has some fear that revolves around an experience or a concept they have never tried. I recently faced the general anxiety of facing many new things as I set out on a journey to Aberystwyth, Wales.

     I had never set foot in a country foreign to my homeland before I came to Aber; though I have been on my own before, and I have traveled before, it is difficult to prepare for every change I will go through as I become accustomed to this country. However, I am thrilled about the opportunities I have as I look forward to a year abroad.

     I chose Aber and Wales partly due to the programme, partly due to the scenery, history, and culture of the country, and partly due to its centrality in much of the literature that has defined my formative years. Lloyd Alexander's Prydain Chronicles, the Time Quintet by Madeline L'Engle, faerie stories, and Shakespeare's works all contain hints of the wonder that Wales has imparted on the respective authors as they came into contact with the country's rich culture, and I hope that wonder will influence both my own writing and my outlook as I find paths that are older than most in the New World.

It took me nearly two days to arrive in the UK. The trip itself was fun, though I had a lot of nervous energy that caused a little bit of discomfort in parts. Some of those nerves still remain as I'm getting adjusted.

     My first layover was in the Cincinnati Airport. There I spent some of my time looking at the local museum's impressive collection of fossilized mammals. Then I connected to the JFK Airport in New York. (This airport is very big and very efficient, but aside from shopping, there isn't much of interest. I spend most of my time charging my phone for my first flight out of the country.) The flight to JFK was mostly uneventful aside from one or two pleasantries from a woman who had a flight to Ireland in JFK. In JFK, I had a little adventure, while I was trying to keep my money secure in a belt pouch that fit under my clothes. When I changed from $ to £, I tried to put it in and thought I had succeeded. I walked back to my gate and suddenly felt the money all go down my pant leg. I bent down as though I were tying my shoe, and was able to retrieve the money while covering it with my jacket. I then went into the restroom to put it away safely, leaving some in my wallet so I wouldn't have to worry about re-enacting that SNAFU.

 My flight to Iceland was interesting because I had a touch screen showing movies, TV shows, the flight details, and a music player. I decided against watching a movie and put on a Brahms symphony and went to sleep after looking at the flight details for a while. (I was happy to see a blanket and a pillow were provided on this flight as it arrived at 7 AM local time.) After I woke up I realized the symphony had restarted, so I looked back at my options and found Dvorak's From the New World. It was epic breaking through the clouds to that music. I recommend it if you have a flight to Iceland.

     The Reykjavik airport was much more interesting than JFK. When we first landed, it was so early that the airport looked almost like it was empty. At first, I thought it was a lot smaller than it was, but once I picked up my bags after following the winding trail to the claim, I saw that the section I had passed opened into the main portion of the airport where all of the business was conducted. There were several art exhibits there including an experimental video titled something like "Brain" that showed a lot of cool abstract images and shapes overlaying MRIs and videos of people. They also had self-service for check-in luggage. Since I had to change airlines here, I printed off my luggage tag and brought the bag over to the place where I was supposed to drop it off. By this time, there were lines in all of the person-operated checked bag sections, so I thought I'd try the self-service line. I stood at it for a few moments trying to figure it out when one of the airport employees came up to me and showed me how it worked. (He said it was easy as falling off a log, and I agreed.) For the rest of my time there, I bought a keychain at the gift shop and looked at a lot of the different folk writings they were selling at the bookshop.

     The next flight was to Copenhagen, and as I settled in, I saw a very tall, very Icelandic-looking man coming down the aisle looking for his seat. His son, around five years old, came over to the seat next to mine and he sat in the aisle row. My neighbors on this flight kept me entertained for the entire trip. At first, I found two things about the five-year-old: he didn't speak English, and he liked Superman. He was carrying a Superman Pez dispenser around like an action figure and smiling up at me. He would turn to his dad and say something in his language, then continue what he was doing. Occasionally he would drop something, and if he couldn't reach it and it was on my side, I would hand it to him. I spent perhaps half an hour alternating between watching him interact with his toys and his "papa" and watching out the window at the clouds. Eventually, the kid got some yogurt from his bag, which he dropped before he could open; I picked it up and handed it back to him. He smiled at me and turned to his papa who thanked me. This whole time, I and the father had been silent to each other, and I thought he may not speak more than a few words in English. He offered me chocolates which I gratefully accepted when I handed the son back the Pez dispenser. After having returned the yogurt, I was surprised by the father asking me where I was from. We spoke the rest of the flight about the US, what he was doing in Iceland, and what I was doing in the UK. He was a big fan of Marvel, so I spoke a lot about Marvel movies, and eventually, we started talking about genealogy, Norse Sagas as compared to American tall tales, and finally about some parts of Iceland he had been to.

     The Copenhagen airport was big, but I was too tired to do much exploring, so I bought a Coca-Cola in order to compare European soda with American. According to my palate, it was bland, but I didn't dislike it. I slept for most of the trip to Birmingham, England, and it was cloudy, so I only got to see ground right before we landed.

     I got through customs unscathed except that when I was getting one of my documents, I couldn't find it because it was folded. Once I picked up my bags, I found a taxi and went to the inn where I had booked in a suburb called Coleshill. The Red Lion doubled as a pub, so walking in with a suitcase was somewhat awkward, but the owner was efficient and kind. I was shown to my room and paid, then I came back down and had dinner. The pub reminded me of Tolkien's descriptions of The Prancing Pony. I felt like a very tired Shire hobbit in a very crowded place full of Breelanders. I also had a bit of stomach trouble from the nerves and the jet lag, so I didn't finish, but the egg mayo sandwich was good. (I was caught off guard by the bacon. If you're ever across the pond, don't forget that bacon means something slightly different over here.) It was cool that night, so I got good sleep.

     I returned to the airport after a continental breakfast served by the inn. The lady working that morning called a cab for me, and I spoke with the cabby on the way to the airport about what I was doing in the UK, (as I had with the cabby the night before). When I arrived, I had my first experience with counting UK currency. I was working on the cab fare, and when I eventually got enough sorted out, my difference was £10.10. I had just finished fishing out a £0.20 coin (twenty pence) and told the cabby he could keep the extra ten. As I was getting my luggage, I realized that his surprised look was because he thought I meant I was giving a £10 tip. I corrected myself, and we laughed at it. I was really flustered, so I forgot to give him more than the ten pence. I wish I'd have given him a couple pounds at least because he was very helpful in giving directions for me when we arrived at the airport.

I waited for about an hour at the airport for the greeting team to arrive, and we boarded the bus where I met a few of the international students. I got quite a few pictures on the bus ride, including one of a double rainbow. (One of the other students had mentioned wanting to see one a few minutes before, so it was well timed, though the top of the rainbow was difficult to see.) Wales is beautiful. More to come.

In love, from my desk in Aberystwyth, Ceredigion, Wales,

Justus

Tharn

Hrar elil make a rabbit tharn, but it only takes one hrududu.

    I have been in a great upheaval of my life recently, and during that time, I have been reading. The most recent book I'm reading (which I have not yet finished) is Watership Down by Richard Adams. I really admire the world that Adams created using such simple thing as language. Adams created a world no different from our own, but from the perspective of rabbits and in their own language (translated for our convinience) in order to get his message across. This isn't necessarily a post about what he has to say as much as it is a post about what is going on in my life, and I thought the language he uses in the book fits pretty well, so here's a crash course in Lapine.  The word "hrar" means "a thousand" or "many." "Elil" is the Lapine word for enemy or predators. I intend to use it here a bit tongue-in-cheek. "Tharn" is, as I said on my Twitter, "The state of being a rabbit or other animal goes into when stuck in headlights".  Which brings us to the final word that I'm going to be using, "hrududu": a tractor or any other motorized vehicle.

I graduated in the Summer, and since then I have been working to find a place to root myself. Somewhat like the rabbits in Watership Down, I have been looking for a safe home. This started off with me living back with my parents and looking for a job, which I found quickly enough. That job required me to drive, but I only had a permit at the time, so I worked to get my license by practicing on the way to and from work. Before I could I lost several people very important to me, which has been hard, but I'm not naive enough to think that I could avoid it, so I've just been trying to take it in stride. Now I hate driving the hrududu, so when I finally got my license, it was a big deal, and it was terrifying; I still tense up every time I'm behind the wheel. Add to that that I made a sudden decision to move away from my parents' house to the other side of the city, and now I need to drive if I want to get anywhere or see anyone, including them, I have a lot of time in that tense state. I feel like not a day goes by but I'm almost responsible for a wreck. (Though I know that's not true by now.) Still, I can't help going tharn if I get in the car.

Moving out is well and good, but I'm definitely not rooted yet. Like the rabbits, I still need to get to know my surroundings and watch for elil or other dangers. I still need friendship, because, like rabbits, people are communal, so though I visit friends, friends visit me, and my roommates are here, I can still get pretty lonely. I decided the other night to go hang out with some of my roommate's friends, but silly me (almost) forgot about my social anxiety. Not being in a social situation for so long has been good in that I haven't been tharn in a long time for that reason, but I had forgotten the techniques I was developing to avoid it, so my one go-to solution had to be enough. After I had been with these wonderful people, I began to feel that dazed buzzing that comes when I clench up and freeze due to the anxiety. I quickly found the book and read until my roommate was ready to go, who had generously invited me and driven to boot,

This episode combined with the fact that I what I was reading made me chuckle, and so I began to think of myself as a rabbit tharn and surrounded by hrar elil, but at least I wasn't dealing with the hrududu.

New Roads on the Old Path

     I graduated this year. I now have a bachelor's degree, and I'm looking for work. My whole life has been spent pursuing academics, and I have been blessed with the aptitude for that pursuit, but now I'm on a new road, and academics are not as important for now. At Patrick Henry, I learned the word "vocation" from a Lutheran scholar named Gene Edward Veith, whose vocation was to study the role of vocation in literature and in the Christian life. At College of the Ozarks, one of the main goals of the school was to develop people who are vocationally minded. (What they meant was hard workers, but I tend to look at it along the lines of the way that Dr. Veith and several of the CofO professors think of the concept.) I know that vocation refers to the calling that each man and woman has wherever he or she finds him or herself. The scope of my vocation right now has been limited to my hometown and what friends I am able to keep in contact with. The main goal right now is to broaden and narrow that scope by adding a particular place in my hometown where I'll meet more people to my daily schedule. (By that I mean, I need a job.)
     The old cliche verse I've been hearing a lot recently, and many grads hear is Jeremiah 29:11. This verse is (almost) ALWAYS out of context. However, God does know His plans for us. "The steps of a [righteous] man are established by the Lord, And He delights in his way. When he falls, he will not be hurled headlong, Because the Lord is the One who holds his hand." Psalm 37:23-24 NASB (I added righteous based on the inclusion in several other translations, which see.) God does know his plan for me, and He is watching and directing my every step.
     One way I know He is doing this is through His answer to a prayer that I have had for a long time, and His wisdom in the timing and manner in which He answered it. Last fall, I started dating. This beautiful woman who God brought into my life has more that once spoken truth that I've needed to hear which I would have ignored from others. She has made me more gentle, wiser, more considerate, more patient, and taught me that I have a lot to learn.
     So far, I have had a couple of weeks of rest, and I've had ill luck finding a job, but God continues to bless me every day with opportunities and good circumstances, so I praise Him for all that He has done. I hope that I will continue to praise Him if my circumstances change, but I know that I am fickle so I can't assure myself of that. Either way, He is worthy of the praise. And I look down the path ahead of me expecting His glory.

In love, from my dining room,
Justus

Being a Better Friend

     I often tell myself that I'm an awful friend. My marshwiggle tendencies toward melancholy lead me down the path of self abasing, which is one of the things I hate the most when I hear others doing it. My concern for others' self image is how I know that I'm not as bad at being a friend as I tell myself. (I do however have a lot of work to do, but that's not so uncommon.)
     Proverbs has a lot to say about being a friend, so I ought to compare myself to the friends in Proverbs, as should we all. That method is probably the wisest and healthiest I can think of for being a better friend.

     I'll start with the kingpin of friend verses, Proverbs 17:17. "A friend loves at all times, and a brother is born for adversity." Wonderfully said, but what does this tell you about yourself? Do you love at all times? Even four in the morning? Even when you have a test to study for? Even when you're angry at him or upset with her? Even when you feel like they should be loving you more? I honestly don't. But that's where I'm beginning to improve. Once you've diagnosed a disease, it's much easier to treat it.

     By the way, when you do have to love a difficult friend remember Proverbs 27:6, "Faithful are the wounds of a friend, but deceitful are the kisses of an enemy." This wisdom is double-edged.
     Firstly, you must remember that loving a difficult friend can wound them. But to be a faithful friend, you must do what is best for them. The clichés "This will hurt me more than it hurts you," and "I'm only doing this because I love you" both draw on the wisdom from this verse.
     Secondly, you must remember that a friend who seems difficult may be the faithful friend that you need, and the difficulty he or she is causing you may be the wounds that you need. He may be cauterizing a cut to keep your spirit from gangrene. She may be cutting a cancerous tumor out of your soul.
     It takes wisdom to tell the difference. Sometimes things get so cloudy that you might both act as the faithful friend for each other-- but isn't that how friendship is supposed to work anyway?

     When you know that you have a faithful friend--  a really good friend-- you can always count on his or herr input, whether you are facing a personal crisis, making a life-changing decision, trying to figure out a member of the opposite sex, or even just trying to motivate yourself to finish a project "Oil and perfume make the heart glad, so a man’s counsel is sweet to his friend." Proverbs 27:9 succinctly compares counsel from a good friend to the biblical equivalent of a nice long shower. When you're feeling really dirty and bogged down, or weak and weary, a long shower helps to fix it like little else. So with less physical things, a long talk with a caring friend cleanses the soul of much of the grime you pick up in everyday life.

     Friends are friendly. This tautological axiom brings up my last verse, Proverbs 27:14. "He who blesses his friend with a loud voice early in the morning, It will be reckoned a curse to him." This verse has led to many silly conversations, but it is still wisdom from the wisest man in the world shared through the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. You have to be friendly to your friends (as the King James Version renders Proverbs 18:24) in order to keep them. Proverbs 27:14 teaches us that boisterousness and friendliness are not the same thing. (For you early birds be aware that your joy may be offensive if you aren't delicate. And for you night owls, be aware that you should still be friendly, even when it's four in the morning, though at that time it will probably look different than friendliness at four in the afternoon.) The boisterous laughter of an evening meal is not in season at most breakfasts. You can still be cheerful without offending those whose bodies take longer to boot up every morning.


-Written with a friend nearby in a dorm lounge. ;)
In love,
Justus

The Pain of Compassion

          My sister's dog, Jewel, died this week; our whole family felt that blow. She had been laboring through the last couple of months, and my sister was spending most of her paycheck on meds and vet visits. Jewel was almost 12. No one was surprised.
          I left home expecting to hear the news before I had another chance to visit. Yet when my brother received the call, he still reacted with disbelief, then he wept. I couldn't respond—not only because I was preoccupied, but also because I had not prepared for my family's responses. How can you prepare for a violent shift in your soul? Let alone others's souls. How can you prepare yourself to hear your brother weep?
          After I had heard more details and Caleb had finished weeping, I found him outside our room playing his guitar. I listened on the floor with him. I hurt with him, but mostly I hurt for him.
          In my nonfiction writing class, we had an assignment last week to describe pain. I chose to write about the pain of loss and described it as having something torn from inside you. I didn't think I'd have such a big chunk torn out so soon after writing it. But now I have a different pain. Sure, the pain of loss is there, and I'm surprised at how accurate my own half-attempted descriptions are, but my greatest pain is the pain of compassion.
          Sympathy and empathy are two varieties of compassion, and I can never tell which one hurts worse. In empathy, I hurt for the other's pain and for my inability to sympathize. I try to be with them and say some soothing words. In sympathy, the pain is compounded with the pain of loss or injury or whatever is causing both individuals to suffer.
          Since we are both going through the same loss, my sympathy for my brother tells me that mere time with him is what he needs, but since he is taking it harder than I, my empathy tells me to say something to sooth him. I'm torn.
The Bible says "Jesus wept" when His friend, Lazarus, died. I won't compare Lazarus and Jewel, but any loss, even when you've had the time to prepare for it, always hurts. (John 11:1-46) It's ok to weep. Mourning builds community through empathy and strengthens it though sympathy and shared memory. But that won't stop the pain. Over time, perhaps the pain of loss will go away, but may the pain of compassion remain in me, and may it make me a kinder, gentler man.

Maranatha! Amen!

-Written from my desk at school.
In love,
Justus

Loneliness vs. Love

          One of my early posts was about loneliness. I think that loneliness is sort of like pain. It is  a warning that something is wrong. This social pain tells us that we don't have enough interaction with other people or that our interactions are not deep and fulfilling, as they should be. God said, "It is not good that man should be alone." So He made woman. Man and woman were created for several purposes, the highest being "to glorify God and enjoy Him forever." To borrow the famous catechism. However, one purpose for man and woman was to procreate. God made us to be social creatures, and as social creatures, we need others to fulfill a need that we (especially introverts) neglect. (Extroverts, I suspect, have a tendency to leave relationships underdeveloped.) This need, social contact, is more than just the need to be around people, though it is impossible without that dimension. We need to be stimulated both emotionally and mentally. (This is for those of you who tend toward logic or are all "feels.") Emotionally, we need to be able to express our feelings to others, not just bottle it up or show one or two "good" feelings. We need to be able to develop our expression in a healthy way, and in order to do that we need to express ourselves to other people. Intellectually, we need to wrestle with our ideas and beliefs as well as with others. We need to be able to perform appendectomies on our wrong beliefs inflamed by passion. In order to do that, we need to know that we are wrong, which means someone has to contradict us, and we have to tease out the implications from their point of view.

          This pain of loneliness tells us that we need a logical appendectomy or that we are bottling up our emotions or wrongly communicating with our fellow men and women. Often these things are caused by our search for love or for our place in life; this is especially true for adolescents. Paul writes to the Church in Corinthians: "Love is patient, love is kind and is not jealous; love does not brag and is not arrogant, does not act unbecomingly; it does not seek its own, is not provoked, does not take into account a wrong suffered, does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth; bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. (1 Corinthians 13:4-7)" I want to point out that things that love is not are often things that we get wrong when we are alone, or when we get our relationships mixed up. They are the things that can make us lonely. In particular, love "does not seek its own." When we seek after love, we seek for our idea of love. We're usually wrong, which is probably why God chose to define what love isn't rather than to say what it is in 1 Corinthians. When we do get love right, we usually just find it, from what I've been able to tell. (Even if just finding it is on an online dating site, most people don't seem to expect what we they end up with.) We often love our family members who, outside of being in our family have nothing in common with us. I was blessed to love my family and have a lot in common with all of them, but there are times that I doubt that we are even from the same planet. Seeking for love is a selfish action. We want something to stop the pain of loneliness, like aspirin, but we don't expect to find that real love requires sacrifice. Real love hurts. Loneliness can also be a phantom pain that we get when we imagine situations where we could have done something different or where we might do something wrong. We imagine who could hurt us and how, so fear of being with people builds up in our hearts. "There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear, because fear involves punishment, and the one who fears is not perfected in love." Punishment is pain inflicted by another; sacrifice is a personal choice to endure pain. Perfect love casts out fear because we have already endured pain, so the pain inflicted by another is nothing new. Love "bears all things" and "endures all things." The lover has acclimated himself or herself to pain, so they shrug off the pain others cause. Patience is an important part of love.

           I've noticed that very few relationships, romantic or otherwise, have equal input from both parties. That doesn't stop me from trying to develop relationships with others. On the contrary, I try harder when I see a relationship that I want to succeed begin to fail. Sometimes I fail, but I always hope for grace. Love "does not take into account a wrong suffered," "believes all things," and "hopes all things." On that note, I want to echo Paul's sentiment in Romans 1:11-13 "I long to see you so that I may impart some spiritual gift to you, that you may be established; that is, that I may be encouraged together with you while among you, each of us by the other’s faith, both yours and mine. I do not want you to be unaware, brethren, that often I have planned to come to you (and have been prevented so far) so that I may obtain some fruit among you also, even as among the rest of the Gentiles." There are a lot of people that I've always intended to keep in touch with, and failed to do so. I'm sorry for that. Can I get a second chance?

P.S. Love tends to seek others' good before the lover's own good. Philippians 2:3 "Do nothing from selfishness or empty conceit, but with humility of mind regard one another as more important than yourselves; do not merely look out for your own personal interests, but also for the interests of others." I hope I'm not being a hypocrite, but it's always hard to be honest about actions and intentions without conflagrating them. I intend to try to love those who are around me, but I am a selfish human, so I will forget. I ask you to gently remind me to love when I am not. I will try my best to do the same for you.

-Written from my dining room at home.
In love,
Justus