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“Uniquely Me”
It has been two months since I moved back to the U.S.A. from Switzerland. During this time, I have experienced two months of raw emotions filled with both extreme highs and extreme lows. Two months of anxiety and clarity. Two months of a new kind of loneliness and reunions with friends and family. As the dust continues to settle, words are still hard to come by to explain precisely what is happening within my thoughts, my heart, and my soul. That said, every once in a while, a song might come on that can highlight a feeling. There is a T.V. show or movie that can give words to the…
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The Human Balance
I recently found myself in multiple conversations about how to strike a balance between recognizing times when we need to be alone and the moments when we need nothing more than to be with others. Needless to say, I didn’t get very far, and the more I thought about it, the more I realized there wasn’t a recipe to strike the balance. That could be because the balance is innate, engrained within the fabric of our beings from the beginning. The very nature of being human is to be ourselves within the constructs of community. Therefore, the truth lies in the paradox. Life has a way of dictating our needs.…
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Beyond Croatia’s Beauty
Living in Switzerland has allowed us to travel to many places in the world that we may not have otherwise been able to see. However, seeing is one thing; experiencing these places is something else. Some places can give you an aura or feel about them beyond that in which the eye can see. Sometimes, their natural beauty may point to and radiate something more to life than what we can visualize. Other times, it might be the architecture that can tell the stories of their past in ways only our subconscious can fully articulate. And then there are the places still wrestling with their own identities as a country,…
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Cold as Stone (3 Years Later)
Three years ago, our lives changed. We blindly boarded a plane with a few suitcases and a one-way ticket to live on the other side of the world. It’s hard to fathom that we have now called Switzerland our home for this long. There are days when it seems surreal, and there are days when it is very real. There are days when we feel grateful, and there are days when we feel the grind and we complain (A lot). This past Sunday, the exact date we left 3 years prior, I sat and tried to come up with something to think about, write about, or at the very least…
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Bonnie Scotland
Over the course of the last two and half years, we have been very fortunate to have traveled a part of the world that we have never seen before. And I think we can all agree that these experiences are not to be taken for granted. Mainly because every time you have an opportunity to experience a new place, a new culture, or a new landscape, it brings you out of your own ego, your own perceptions, your own narrow reality. And for this, we are very grateful. We have been to many different countries and cities over the course of the last few years and each one has left…
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Turning the Big 4-0
They say that when you turn 40, you enter a new stage of life where you begin to see things more thoroughly—or, better put, as they are rather than as you want them to be. Ideology and theory become less of a focus, and the messiness of life becomes more of a comfortable norm. Maybe it is about being content within the “grey” areas of our lives, where we seem better suited to hold two opposing things together without discounting either. This has undoubtedly been the case for me as I reflect upon the immense beauty and suffering in my own life. Both of these are constantly present, but when…
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Nice, France
Earlier this month we took the short 50 minute plane ride from Basel, Switzerland to Nice, France. It was in the middle of the “holiday” season here in Europe so I wasn’t completely sure what we were getting ourselves into, especially with this being our first time to the French Riviera. A couple of things come to mind since we have returned. Distance: One of the great aspects of living in Europe, especially Switzerland because of its central location, is the proximity to other countries. Being an American, our worldview as far as distance is concerned can be at times skewed because in some cases we can drive 8 hours…
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Wrestling with Time
Forever Paul Laurence Dunbar, 1872 – 1906 I had not known before Forever was so long a word. The slow stroke of the clock of time I had not heard. ‘Tis hard to learn so late; It seems no sad heart really learns, But hopes and trusts and doubts and fears, And bleeds and burns. The night is not all dark, Nor is the day all it seems, But each may bring me this relief— My dreams and dreams. I had not known before That Never was so sad a word, So wrap me in forgetfulness— I have not heard.
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Rounding Second Base
(Photo: The Charles Bridge, Prague, Czech Republic) This post is a bit long, disjointed, maybe a lot of rambling, and yes, it might not make much sense, but in light of the week (Holy Week) and my last post, “Finding Freedom,” I was compelled to write it. I have recently found myself thinking of a few short stories that my pastor in the States would bring up, time and time again, hoping that it would sink in. Life usually indicates whether you can receive the intended message when given to you. In other words, you can’t rush the meaning if you aren’t ready to receive it. And not being prepared…
