The City.

By Rafael

So I was sitting here yesterday, still having my mind wrapped around things, hearing and reading people complaining about the greyness in Berlin these days. Its chilly, overcast and we have not seen much in the way of sun in a while. It’s something about these old buildings during overcast days, as I wrote previously, that makes for a dreary scenery when looking out the windows. No wonder spirits might be down at times, little aches and colds are more noticeable and tiredness seems to way much heavier then usually. I was reminded yesterday of a G.K. Chesterton essay I read a while ago. In “The Poetry of Cities,” Chesterton argues against the dichotomy that reigns in our minds between the beautiful and the mundane, or as he puts it, between what is poetic over against the prosaic. The dichotomy he speaks of, is that between what we consider cities to be, namely prosaic – and that which we consider nature to be, namely poetic. In other words, we all strive for a look of the beautiful which we find most often outside of our places, of our cities, out in nature, out in the country. Just think of the most beautiful places in Canada for example. My mind immediately hands me a hit list of tourist attractions starting with the Rocky Mountains.

Chesterton, however finds this turn of events rather disagreeable. Thus he helpfully points out to us that “Nature has too much to do in her great project of satisfying our insatiable appetite for breakfast and supper to pay special attention to the lust of our eyes…we have no particular reason to suppose that a lily was intended to be beautiful; it was for the far nobler purpose of producing other lilies”(Chesterton, p. 20). Indeed why do I complain about the greyness of this city, the listlessness of existence during this time, or why do I let my moods be determined by the absence of beauty. Again Chesterton reminds us “It took man [sic] many generations to realise the poetry of the macrocosm it which he [sic] lives…[it may] take man [sic] some number of generations to realise the poetry of the microcosm in which he[sic] lives”(p 22). Regardless of colours, regardless of the absence of certain visual cues we now hold to be normatively beautiful (for a short time I might add, if history teaches us anything), what Chesterton reminds us of through this essay is this: That the poetry, the beauty of the city might not necessarily be found in its features, in the sun reflecting on windows of the TV-Tower, or the Bundestag lit up at night against a dark sky, but rather in the people that cross our paths:

“So many men pass us in the street who may have a rich and unique history that, for the sake of mere convenience, we fall back on the assumption that none of them has. We compel ourselves to pass by dramas as if they were Sunday School stories; we are steeled to fling romances into the waste paper baskets, cover and all, as if, instead of containing histories coloured and gilded with human passion, they contained nothing but coal circulars…”(p. 23).

Maybe it is that we refuse to notice the beautiful in the grey, the poetic in the mundane walk through the city. Maybe we close our eyes the drama, the poetry, the history of the people passing us by because it is easier, more comfortable and it allows us to remain closed, unaffected and passive. How much easier after all, it is to look at a mountain or to take a picture of a beautiful turquoise lake rather then to open up, invest and take time to relate to others. Could it be that we are scared of each other? Could it be that we are scared that we might have to invest to much? Are we scared about others finding out our thoughts and our fears? Is it just to much work?!

I give Chesterton the last word: “But the reason we fly from the city is not in reality that it is not poetical; it is that its poetry is too fierce, too fascinating and too practical in its demands.”

Therefore show these men the proof of your love and the reason for our pride in you, so that the churches can see it.
2. Corinthians 8:24

All quotations from:
Chesterton, G.K. “The Poetry of Cities.” In Lunacy and Letters. Ed. by Dorothy Collins. London: Sheed and Ward, 1958. pp. 19-23.

The Month as we knew it...?

By Dave:

Oh, hello Team Blog! How are you doing today? I'm doing quite well myself, thank you. It seems like it's been so long since I saw you, what have you been doing? Waiting for me to post on you. Oh. Well...ahem. I'm sorry about that, but I've been slightly busy with...well, with what I'm going to write about :D
So, what has the last month held for good ol' Team Deutschland? Quite a bit. I can't remember all too much of it (although my memory really isn't good at all), but the most recent events stand out to me. I'll brush over those, as I must post something.
We enjoyed a nice New Year's with one of the youth from the church here. His name is Max, and, as he speaks English, we can do more than pitifully stumble through a 'conversation' with him. We spent the night at the church building to protect it from drunk youth and whatnot. We had no troubles of any sort, though, and enjoyed a time of Monopoly, and fireworks, which is quite tame for a German New Year's.
It quite surprised me how big a deal it is here. The whole city of Berlin literally sounded like an active war zone from all the fireworks and firecrackers (I'm not exaggerating). The air everywhere smelled of gunpowder, and, the day after, the ground was so littered with firework remnants and beer bottles that one could hardly take two steps without stepping on some trash or other. I was not expecting it to be nearly as important as it is. Our 80 euro worth of fireworks was meagre in comparison with what most people blow up in the sky.

The next morning, we found ourselves on an ICE (Inter City Express) train, en route to Borkenwirthe, which is a small farm-ly town right on the border of Holland. It was a little 'vacation' for us; a small break to regroup, and get some reading done. It was quite beautiful up there, especially after a night's snowfall. It was wonderful to look out over a flat, white landscape, red brick houses poking up here and there.
We made a trip into Holland, bought some superb Dutch cheese, saw a windmill, and bought old, rare books from a handy old, rare, English bookstore in an entirely unimportant, small town, which was a thoroughly wonderful treat (I bought a charming book about wild Otters, among others).
We also took a trip to a nearby German city called Münster, which is the location of several absolutely magnificent cathedrals (as well as a historical blunder of epic proportions, but this isn't a history lesson, so I won't go in to that). Going into the churches there caused me sorrow over the fact that churches are no longer built in that manner. They are so beautiful, and the appearance of them most surely brings one to a most reverent and thoughtful state of awe.
We spent some time with the director of MBMSI Europe, Johan Matthies. He was a fascinating person, who served as a missionary for many years in the Balkans, smuggling Bibles into Muslim countries, and other such shenanigans. He imparted some of his life experience to us, and led us in a study on the book of Daniel.
Our team was in charge of leading the Sunday church service at a local non-state church. We did the worship, our team leader preached (he speaks German), and it all went quite well. They were very welcoming and appreciative of our being there. Good people, all of them.
And we went on a frozen pond, but eventually got scared and left...

Upon arriving back in Berlin at around 7:30 pm, the guys of the team moved into a new apartment. It was interesting, arriving back from a trip to move into another new habitation. The apartment belongs to a family that used to attend the church we're working with, but have moved to Northern Germany because of work. They kept the apartment, however, and leave it open for guests of the church to use should the need to arise (and they use it whenever they are back in Berlin).
We're not sure how long we'll be living here, but nobody's really sure of anything around here, so we'll just have to wait and see how that pans out :)

And that, in a nutshell what we've failed to update you on for the last month. We'll try to be a big more regular with the update things...but I've said that numerous times. I'm just bad at schedules...and remembering things...and most every skill required to put out regular updates... Not that it's an excuse, I'm just saying.

my, how time flies!

by: candi

so i recently (and by recently, i mean a few seconds ago) this blog has not been up dated in well over a month. i suppose that is okay because it means we've been busy... or it means that occasionally someone says, "hey, we should update the team blog" but then no one takes the initiative to actually write anything on here (assuming that it's always someone else's responsibility).

last week, we as a team had a retreat in western germany. we stayed in the small village of borkenwirthe in a little apartment above a church. we had a mini-silent retreat, played the card game 'scum' for many hours, had plenty of time to read and sleep and eat, went to the netherlands for the day (a 15 minute drive from where we were staying), helped with a church service at a healthy church plant, had some sessions with the director of MBMSI europe, and spent a day walking around the historic city of münster.

now we're back in berlin. four of us started german lessons last week. all four of us are at different levels of understanding and speaking the language, but thankfully we're all in the same class. our classmates are from all over the world: the philippines, china, italy, iran, and one from nyc, usa.

so, today is sunday. we finished the church service maybe an hour and a half ago. dinah and i are still here chilling (literally) at the church. raf preached today, and most of the team was involved in the music for the service. we had communion today and it was really cool: the entire congregation stood in a circle at the front of the church. we passed the bread and the wine (grape juice!) around the circle, then prayed together. it was actually very 'communal'.

that's about all i've got for you right now. maybe someone else will post some time.

maybe.

tschüss!