Tod Bolsinger

What a Flat World Looks Like

Knowing and Doing and Being

I am home now from my trip to Costa Rica, filled with fun memories of both beautiful places and warm people.  My son and I had a great time together learning Spanish, rappelling down waterfalls, river rafting the Rio Pacuare and even trying to learn to kayak.

When I got back to church on Sunday, everybody kept asking me if I had "learned" Spanish.  The answer is a clear, firm "yes".  And "no".   After five weeks "in country" and in intensive classes, I now "know" quite a bit of Spanish.  I have learned conjugations for three past tenses, present tense and a future tense.  I even know the differences between the two different forms of "to be" and "for".  But, using it...well, it's still pretty rough.  Even though I know what to say, I can't always say it, at least not correctly.  I just need more and more practice. 

And then there is the matter of actually understanding people.  Again, more practice.

Somebody who is pretty well versed in languages asked me, "Are you dreaming in Spanish, yet?"  I said, "Oh I am dreaming ABOUT Spanish (like I used to dream about Trigonometry in High School and Greek in Seminary), but I am not dreaming IN Spanish, yet."   She replied, "Well, once you are dreaming in Spanish, then you will know you are on your way."

There is a long way from "knowing" to "being".  The road is through "practice."  Jesus said a very similar thing about his teachings, "If you know these things, you are blessed if you do them." (John 13:17).

It is very possible to know either a language or "the truth that will set you free" and still not be very "blessed" (or much of a blessing).  At least until you moving from "knowing" to "being", via "doing."

The Rhythm of Learning

Another lesson on learning anything while I am working on learning this one thing (Spanish).

First it´s hard.
Then it´s easy.
Then it´s really hard.
Then..it just is.

When I first started learning Spanish it was hard.  I felt dumb.  I was embarrassed and it seemed hopeless. I wondered how I ever learned to speak English.  I hate being a beginner at anything.  I always feel like I did when I was a new Freshman walking around my high school campus trying not to get lost, convinced that all the older kids were laughing at me.  It was just hard.  Not TECHNICALLY hard, but emotionally so.  And the pain of the necessary humility needed to begin something new kept me from doing anything new for a long, long time.  I told myself that I wouldn´t do anything if I couldn´t do it well.  Or that you really can´t teach an old dog..blah, blah, blah.  But it was just really hard to feel so incompetent at something so basic.

And then it got easy.  Almost a rush of enthusiasm, confidence and excitement filled me when I had my first (oh, so, basic) conversation with a cab driver.  I actually said to him, (and I will never forget it), Ï want to go to a restaraunt, but I need to go to the bank.¨  I was hooked, I was talking.  I knew that I sounded like a baby, but I didn´t care.  This all seemed so easy.  I was learning words, and verbs and grammatical structures.  (All present tense, mostly infinitives and often pronounced really awkwardly). Other tourist types told me that I was pretty good at this Spanish thing.  The people I met encouraged me on, telling me that they couldn´t believe that I had only been doing this for a couple of weeks.  It was easy.  I went to Mexico earlier this year and was totally impressed with myself.  I even told others that I thought I was doing well and really making strides.  I actually thought that I could begin to hold a conversation with someone. It was easy.

And then it got really hard.  I arrived in Turrialba and realized that I couldn´t understand one word of ¨normal¨ Spanish.  Oh, if a teacher talked VERY CLEARLY AND VERY SLOOOWLY I could make out most basic sentences, but I still haven´t understood a single word spoken on the streets or at the supermarket.  I realized that if this was ¨real Spanish¨ I was still really, really bad at it.  And so then it got really, really hard.  I had a decision to make.  Was I really going to learn this language, or just have a few basic tourist phrases? Did I really want to have a conversation or was I just interested in spouting off a few things.  And most of all, did I really want to go through the hard, and equally humbling experience of learning to listen to people.   Aye, yi, yi.  This was hard.  Was I just going to become ¨familiar¨with Spanish, or was I really going to use it in the real world?

And now, it´s still hard.  And sometime´s it´s easy.  And sometimes it makes no sense at all.  Today I learned a type of past tense that doesn´t even exist in my original language.  It´s not translatable, it just is.  I have to learn to think differently.  And that is what a lot of learning this language is.  Learning to think in a new way, in a different world, to a whole new universe of people.  It is hard, it is easy. It just is.

I have a hunch that Christianity is like this too. 

Over at Rob Asghar´s blog, some of us are taking up a conversation on the resurrection.  And in someways, a whole conversation about Christianity with a group of folks who have been doing this a long time is in the ¨really hard¨ stage. It will be interesting to see what getting to the ¨just is¨ stage looks like.

On the resurrection

I am in the middle of an engaging conversation about the resurrection with some friends who are wrestling with different views on the necessity of a literal, bodily resurrection of Jesus. 

Since I happened to address this a bit on Easter, and am busy learning some Spanish while in Costa Rica (as well as kayaking, canyoning and going on the absolutely coolest river rafting trip ever on the Rio Pacuare!), I will post the link to my sermon from the church website.  If you are interested, here is my contribution to the issue.  If you are looking for the footnotes, a lot of them would be found here.  (Or in ¨crib notes¨ form, here.)

Learning and listening

I am at the end of what is my fourth week of intensive Spanish lessons in Costa Rica.  After three weeks last year and one of two weeks completed this year, I am beginning to learn both a little Spanish and some other lessons about learning itself.  Since ¨discipleship¨ is really about becoming a learner, or apprentice of Christ, I have a hunch that some of the best lessons I may learn along the way, may have little to do with Spanish at all.

So, consider these rough drafts of the beginnings of ideas that I need to think about a bit more.

First, most of learning revolves around listening.  And listening and understanding is much, much harder than speaking.  After four weeks of doing this, I have ¨mastered¨ the basic phrases.  I am ready to punch them out on demand, when I want to say something.

¨I want to eat.¨ Ï need to go to the bank.¨ ¨I like...whatever.¨ I, I, I, I. 

But when the conversation is not one that I began. Or if it goes longer than a simple exchange, I am quickly lost.

Even worse, half the time, I am not even responding to what the person in front of me actually said, but what I ASSUMED they said.  Twice now, I have responded to someone´s kindly greeting with a hearty ¨Gracias!¨  Now there is nothing wrong with being grateful, even for someone saying hi to me.  But in both cases, I was simply on auto pilot.  I actually know how to greet someone and carry on the most basic of conversations.  Unfortunately, most of the time, I didn´t even hear what they said to me in the first place.  I was so busy with my assuptions that I missed the chance for a conversation. 

The more I learn Spanish, the more I realize how really hard it is to listen, well. When I spend so much of my time trying to figure out what to say, or how to say something correctly or clearly, I completely miss the point of all this work.  And I am beginning to wonder if I don´t do this all the time.  Even in the language that I most comfortable speaking.  Maybe especially so.

Ode to a Regular Town

Brooks and I have returned to Costa Rica for two weeks of language school, this time in a town called Turrialba.  Turrialba is in the center of the country and for Costa Rica it is far from the tourist areas that most Americans frequent. 

What that means is that it is much better for Spanish immersion because people actually and mostly speak only Spanish here.  In Dominical and La Fortuna there were so many english speakers that it was actually a little hard to practice Spanish last year.  Much easier for a beginner and a tourist to feel at home, but perhaps a bit less authentic.

Turrialba is the real deal.  For my son, it even took a few hours of adjustment.  After staying in smaller more tourist friendly areas in the past, this has been a stretching adventure.  But within 24hrs we had come to feel quite comfortable here.

We are staying in a little two bedroom apartment that opens to a street that is a pure urban neighborhood.   Bars on all the windows, stray dogs wander the street and yet it is safe and quiet.  Families are everywhere and nobody pays us any mind.  In the back of the apartment, runs the tiny Rio Colorado and we have a delightful back porch that overlooks it while sitting under a huge orange tree. 

We walk to school every day about 20 minutes and we eat at a ¨Soda¨ every day for lunch.  Everything is normal prices, not tourist  prices.  I have yet to pay more than $10 for a meal for Brooks and me combined. The internet costs about 50 cents an hour.  Dominical was ten times that. The people are friendly and if you speak kindly to them, they will speak kindly and slowly to you.

Once again the language instruction is wonderful and this time the great suprise is that I have met Christians.  I have found that there are not as many Christians around tourist towns, but once you get into a Regular Town, you find folk with faith. 

It has been a wonderul experience so far.  We have even packed in a bunch of fun.  Kayaking, Canyoning, already.  A volcano hike and then a river rafting excursion this weekend.  We have one more week ahead of us and every day I thank God for the chance to have more adventures with my son, to expose him to the world and learn more about the joy of continuing to stretch and learn.

In the Daily Prayer Book of Common Worship there is a prayer that goes, Ëternal God¨ your touch makes the world blessed. Thank you for the splendor of your creation and the beauty of your people.¨

It is one of the lessons I love to relearn over and again when I travel.

Pura vida!

P. S.  I will return to the lessons from American Idol when I get back, but in the meantime, I am mostly watching a small bit of TV to practice listening to the language.  I can´t find American Idol, but as my son said, ¨The Simpsons is funny in any language.¨

Marathon for Malawi Update

My son Brooks and I off to Language School in Costa Rica to study Spanish (and hopefully keep running regularly).  He is training to join the SCHS cross-country team in the fall and I continue to train for the Vineman Half-Ironman in July and the Chicago Marathon in October to raise funds for our World Vision project in Malawi Africa.

Our team of runners continues to grow and when I get back we'll start training together.  If you'd like to contribute to our cause, please hit the button below.  And thanks to all those who have already given.  It is a gift indeed that you have cared so much.  I am 1/4 of the way to my goal.  Please help me get there.

I'll keep you posted, please pray for me and our band of runners with a cause.

And I'll try to post again from the land of Pura Vida.

A Challenge for "Easter Monday"

The bodily resurrection of Jesus isn't a take-it-or-leave-it thing, as though some Christians are welcome to believe it and others are welcome not to believe it. Take it away, and the whole picture is totally different. Take it away, and Karl Marx was probably right to accuse Christianity of ignoring the problems of the material world. Take it away, and Sigmund Freud was probably right to say that Christianity is a wish-fulfillment religion. Take it away, and Friedrich Nietzsche was probably right to say that Christianity is a religion for wimps. Put it back, and you have a faith that can take on the postmodern world that looks to Marx, Freud and Nietzsche as its prophets; you can beat them at their own game with the Easter news that the foolishness of God is wiser than human wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than human strength.
Those who celebrate the mighty resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ, therefore, have an awesome and nonnegotiable responsibility. When we say "Alleluia! Christ is risen!" we are saying that Jesus is Lord of the world, and that the present would-be lords of the world are not. When we sing, in the old hymn, that "Judah's Lion burst his chains and crushed the serpent's head," are we ready to put that victory into practice? Are we ready to speak up for, and to take action on behalf of, those even in our own local community, let alone farther afield, who are quietly being crushed by uncaring and unjust systems?
Are we ready to speak up for the truth of the gospel over the dinner table and in the coffee bar and in the council chamber?

-N. T. Wright, "Grave matters," Christianity Today, April 6, 1998.

Easter Continued

Now on that same day two of them were going to a village called Emmaus, about seven miles from Jerusalem, and talking with each other about all these things that had happened. While they were talking and discussing, Jesus himself came near and went with them, but their eyes were kept from recognizing him. And he said to them, ‘What are you discussing with each other while you walk along?’ They stood still, looking sad. Then one of them, whose name was Cleopas, answered him, ‘Are you the only stranger in Jerusalem who does not know the things that have taken place there in these days?’ He asked them, ‘What things?’ They replied, ‘The things about Jesus of Nazareth, who was a prophet mighty in deed and word before God and all the people, and how our chief priests and leaders handed him over to be condemned to death and crucified him. But we had hoped that he was the one to redeem Israel. Yes, and besides all this, it is now the third day since these things took place. Moreover, some women of our group astounded us. They were at the tomb early this morning, and when they did not find his body there, they came back and told us that they had indeed seen a vision of angels who said that he was alive. Some of those who were with us went to the tomb and found it just as the women had said; but they did not see him.’ Then he said to them, ‘Oh, how foolish you are, and how slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have declared! Was it not necessary that the Messiah should suffer these things and then enter into his glory?’ Then beginning with Moses and all the prophets, he interpreted to them the things about himself in all the scriptures. As they came near the village to which they were going, he walked ahead as if he were going on. But they urged him strongly, saying, ‘Stay with us, because it is almost evening and the day is now nearly over.’ So he went in to stay with them. When he was at the table with them, he took bread, blessed and broke it, and gave it to them. Then their eyes were opened, and they recognized him; and he vanished from their sight. They said to each other, ‘Were not our hearts burning within us while he was talking to us on the road, while he was opening the scriptures to us?’ That same hour they got up and returned to Jerusalem; and they found the eleven and their companions gathered together. They were saying, ‘The Lord has risen indeed, and he has appeared to Simon!’ Then they told what had happened on the road, and how he had been made known to them in the breaking of the bread. (Luke 24)

Seven Stanzas on Easter: A Poem

Make no mistake: if He rose at all
it was as His body;
if the cells' dissolution did not reverse, the molecules
re-knit, the amino acids rekindle,
the Church will fall.

It was not as the flowers,
each soft Spring recurrent;
it was not as His Spirit in the mouths and fuddled
eyes of the eleven apostles;
it was as His Flesh: ours.

The same hinged thumbs and toes,
the same valved heart
that — pierced — died, withered, paused, and then
re-gathered out of enduring Might
new strength to enclose.

Let us not mock God with metaphor,
analogy, sidestepping transcendence;
making of the event a parable, a sign painted in the
faded credulity of earlier ages:
let us walk through the door.

The stone is rolled back, not papier-mâché,
not a stone in a story,
but the vast rock of materiality that in the slow
grinding of time will eclipse for each of us
the wide light of day.

And if we will have an angel at the tomb,
make it a real angel,
weighty with Max Planck's quanta, vivid with hair,
opaque in the dawn light, robed in real linen
spun on a definite loom.

Let us not seek to make it less monstrous,
for our own convenience, our own sense of beauty,
lest, awakened in one unthinkable hour, we are
embarrassed by the miracle,
and crushed by remonstrance.

by John Updike
(With thanks to John Dettoni for sending it to me.)