Em-bare-ass-ment

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In the eight months since I left home I’ve lived out of five different backpacks. I just ordered my sixth and I’m praying it arrives at Jeremy’s parents house before they fly out to meet us in Greece. My pragmatic approach to finding the right travel luggage is made possible by REI’s no-questions-asked return policy. I wish I could get a career with a return policy like that.

I’m a dreamer. I dream about small things… like accessible pockets for backpacks, and about big things…like how I should spend my life. Some weeks go like this: On Monday it occurs to me that I’d like to sell hot dogs on a street corner (I do apologize if you have trouble resonating with my examples, perhaps we have different values). On Tuesday I see a movie in which there is a nomadic bee keeper who keeps bees in the back of his truck and sells honey wherever he goes (Incredible! I don’t know if I can stand not doing this). On Wednesday I’m still excited about bee keeping, but by Thursday I’m on the fence between architecture and plastic surgery. I wish I could approach my career choice in the same way I‘ve approached my choice of backpack. It’d be great to be able to “return” or “exchange” careers. I suppose if I did things as simple as hot dog selling switching would be pretty easy, but I think I want to be a doctor. Doctoring is a career that doesn’t come with a return policy.

Conversations about my plans for the future have historically frustrated me. I have felt judged by well-intentioned older folks and their questions about my goals. What do they want me to say? “I’m on track to do something great with my life…see Bjorn run…see Bjorn succeed.” I don’t like disappointing people who want to hear me say those things, but I also don’t like lying. I don’t know how to answer my girlfriends’ parents when they ask what kind of work I intend to do (actually I don’t have a girlfriend, I bet that‘s why). Are there wives for the whimsical? I don’t want a marriage with a return policy, just a career.

Traveling has been fun because the strangers you meet and talk to, unlike your girlfriend’s parents, have no incentive to judge you. If I’m not going to see you again I’m not worried about sounding consistent. I can tell you about hot dogs, bee keeping, or anything else that intrigues me. It’s a bit like “trying on” a career.

Friendly Questioner: What will you do when you‘ve finished traveling

Me: I’ve though of opening a kitchen design studio.

Next Questioner: Same question.

Me: I need to find out what it takes to get into cattle ranching in Mongolia.

Next Questioner: Same.

Me: I may go to medical school (I “try this one on” a lot because I’m serious about buying and there’s no return policy).

The conversations that follow these questions are edifying. I find myself learning how serious I am and whether or not I’m well grounded in my thinking by trying to answer the questions my new friends ask. My new friends have a lot less at stake than my hypothetical girlfriends’ parents, so they don’t judge me. It’s great. The only person who could judge me in regard to consistency is Jeremy, and while I do suspect he thinks I’m crazy, he doesn’t seem prone to judging.

Speaking of Jeremy, I haven’t seen him or any other English speaker in a week. Where I’m at there are a lot more terrorists than there are tourists. I heard through the grapevine (which is to say through face book) that Jeremy is in Poland. I’m in Armenia. Jeremy likes WWII history. I like getting off the beaten track. We decided to divide and conquer. We’ll meet back up in another week. Traveling alone is a good time for self discovery. Thanks to traveling alone I’ve learned I prefer not to travel alone. Could this have been learned any other way? I think not. Also I learned some other stuff, but that’s the main thing.

I’ve been relentlessly on the move since I left Jeremy in St. Petersburg, sleeping every night on trains, ferries, or buses to cover more ground and to save on hostel costs. The buses don’t have bathrooms but I’ve got a few tricks to keep myself from needing to use the bathroom. Being thirsty sucks, but so does needing to pee, so when I’m thirsty I eat oranges. They’ve got enough liquid to quench thirst w/o making me need to pee. To keep from having to poo (what an odd word…I think we have a major lexical gap. “Poo” is a cute word for something that‘s not cute and “Defecate” is way too bookish and medical sounding for regular people) I eat white bread ‘til I‘m constipated. There are great bakeries in Turkey and Armenia, btw. I had everything under control until yesterday when I became painfully aware that my two methods are at odds with each other. I was properly constipated, but I got really thirsty and ate too many oranges. I forgot how fibrous oranges are. Things happened kinda fast.

“Pull over!!! Pull over now!!!” I frantically shouted to the driver of the bus. This was one of those “pack ‘em in” buses, the isle was completely crammed full of people and stuff. I knew I’d have to crowd surf my way to the door. Crowd surfing requires team participation, so I did a quick motivational charade in which I acted out what my body was about to do. This produced the desired effect from the crowd. I made it out of the bus. There were no trees. There weren’t even bushes. Everyone just watched. I think I was supposed to feel embarrassed. I certainly felt bare-assed, but I was too relieved to be embarrassed.

Still Talking About God

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In my notes I’ve reminded myself to write about the smugglers who I met and unwittingly abetted on the Trans-Siberian RR, about the veritable “Wild West” (in the far east) that is Mongolia, and about how entering Russia from Asia (as opposed to entering from the Europe) made me realize how similar I am to the average Russian. I’ve never really thought Russians and Americans had a lot in common, but when it’s just me, a Mongolian, and a Russian together in a room, somehow the Russian and I are brothers.
According to my notes those are the things I ought to write up, but somehow their moment has passed. I had another theological discussion this morning and it’s on my mind.
Any of you who’ve read this blog with any sort of regularity know that this trip, for me, has been a spiritual journey at least as much as it has been a regular journey. I’ve made a habit of posing the question “do you believe in God?” as often as I get the chance. Answers have varied drastically, and in most cases kicked off some worthwhile dialogue.
I woke up early this morning to blog. I was firing up my laptop in the hostel’s kitchen when three noticeably drunk hostel fellows whom I hadn’t met before came in. They’d been drinking all night. They were pretty sloshed (one fell out of his chair at one point, and another just laid his face on the table and started snoring), but w/o my provocation they started philosophizing. I stopped writing and started listening.
The burly Finish fellow was of the mind that death is all there is. “We may as well die, there’ s nothing besides death anyway.” Some of what he was saying would have fit well in Ecclesiastes, except he never thought to add the “fear God and keep His commandments” bit. He had a black and white picture of things, but it was more black than white. His less profound French companion (the one who wasn’t conked out and drooling on the table) argued that life was better than that because of the it’s “high” moments. “Even if you are sad more than you are happy,” said the Frenchman, “happiness is worth more than sadness so it can overcome your sadness and make life worth living.” He thought that buying a new laptop might be one such “high.”
I wasn’t at all sure I should enter the conversation because it was obvious that our ideas were quite different and would hinge on the discussion of whether or not there is a God. I prayed that I wouldn‘t make a fool of myself and opened my mouth.

I made a case for the existence of a God based on the idea that there is an identifiable moral code within ourselves (more fundamental than those that various religions arrive at) that we feel compelled at least to recognize if not to obey. I’ve not worked extensively with this stuff, but that was the angle I took. If there is such a thing as real, absolute right and wrong then there must be a writer of that code, a “something else,” a God.
Coming up with concrete examples is something C.S. Lewis is a lot better at than me, but I did my best. I tried to make it raw and poignant. “If I sleep with the woman you love (ladies you’ll have to adjust the example accordingly) you‘ll be well convinced that the thing I did was ‘wrong.’” I claimed that outside of any religious structure, and outside of any fabricated moral code that a culture has adopted, it would be WRONG for me to do this thing, and that the fact that you would be eager to smash my skull with a heavy stick means you are recognizing my wrongness.
Drunk as they were the guys were really great to talk to. They even helped me revise my example. They weren’t sure how the feminists would feel about the “ownership” that a man’s right to be angry at another man for taking his woman implies. So we changed question to “what if I kidnap your son and make him my slave?” Did I for sure wrong you then? Is that wrong enough to be described as absolutely wrong? Is it wrong beyond any “wrongness” that some well meaning but polluted moral thinker may have come up with in the process of inventing a religion?
At this point the Atheists made historical conjectures, and I made historical conjectures. We agreed that such behavior would illicit indignation in ourselves and in anybody we’d ever met, but they argued that there was most likely a time and a people in the past who would not have recognized this behavior as wrong. I think there was never such a people.

The guys were pretty staunch on the idea that everything we’ve ever recognized as right or wrong is only right or wrong because it’s come to be called right and wrong by the prevailing culture. I can’t prove otherwise my experience points me in another direction.
They’ve got their experience and I’ve got mine. That’s that. They may have been drunk but they weren’t stupid, and they weren’t lazy or wishful thinkers either. The guy from Finland praised the Christian moral code for what it was. He doesn’t think it’s “truth” but he does think it’s useful.
So what does a Christian disciple look like here? I don’t know if better apologists with better angles than me would be more convincing than I was. I kind of think there are enough words and theories floating around. For me the challenge is to be the real McCoy. If this Christianity stuff is legit people will see it in my life and want it. Integrity and authenticity are two things my generation demands. That’s good as long as I’m legit. Am I? Are you?