By the way, I did end up coming back to the US from South Korea, but I don’t want to talk about it here. I want to keep this blog fairly introspection-free. It just not that kind of blog.

But this post, I’d like to talk about science and religion, those strange bedfellows. I love science and I love religion. Both are exciting, both are controversial and both exibit the sort of innovation that makes any discipline exciting to be a part of. However science and religion can’t seem to get it together. I’d like to talk about that.

The hard thing about science and religion, as far as I can see, is that they are two different systems which have two different systems of rules, different capabilities and different standards for judging the soundness of claims. On their own, science and religion both make wonderful systems that work fairly well, but they keep trying to get into each other’s buisness. It is my contention that science and religion need to stick to their own disciplines and they need to stop making claims outside of their own purview.

Let’s start with definitions. Now these are my own definitions and I would be more than happy to negotiate them with anyone who would like to continue the dialogue:

In this post, I’ll use the term “the world” to mean the physical universe. Common to science and religion and our everyday experience, are little pieces of information called ‘facts’. A fact is an observed state about something in the world, usually the state of a physical body. Facts by themselves are usually quite unimpressive. They can be enigmatic at times, but much more important are how we understand the facts we observe.

Science seeks to understand the world, particularly its physical properties and natural ‘laws’. Science asks questions like, ‘if a ball is dropped from an airplane, how fast will it going when it hits the ground?’ or ‘what cells made out of?’ or, more daring, questions, ‘Why is the universe made of matter instead of anti-matter?’.  Though experimentation is very important to science, it’s not the real crux of the discipline. The real magic of science is the ‘theory’. A Scientific theory is the explanation, or framework into which we try to make the facts fit. For the same body of facts, there may be more than one theory, so science needs a way of discerning the merits of theories to tell if one is better than the other. More on this discernment later.

Religion also seeks to understand the world, but is less concerned with the ‘laws’ concerning physical bodies, but has a larger emphasis on spiritual phenomena and on certain questions of metaphysics. A topic within the broad category of philosophy, the word ‘religion’ has the connotation of its social nature. The theories of religion are called doctrines, and they have about the same weight as a theory does in science, with a few important differences. My perspective on religion being largely a Christian one, for this particular religion seems to be most at odds with science, so it seems.

Science and religion both work reasonably well. Of course, we have seen each go horribly wrong, but most of the time each of them get along pretty well by themselves. At least, as well as might be expected, considering that there are actual people practicing science and religion.

Well I think I’ve gone on long enough. This is clearly going to be a multi-post topic, so I won’t drag you on and on in one post. I’ll probably even start writing the post immediately. There you have it!

Well, as many of you may know (particularly those who knew me in College, not to mention my parents most of all):

When I am far away, and things aren’t going very well, my communication generally drops off. I suppose I figure that, if I have bad news to tell, bad news that very well may blow over soon, then I might as well wait until it does to resume communication.

So do I have bad news to tell? I wish it were that simple, good news and bad news.  Hmmm… My camera broke – I guess that is some clear-cut bad news: something that I’ve been quasi-dreading to tell the ah, blogosphere. And the South Korean Won (the money) is well over 1300 to the dollar: my 1,000,000 won sent home yesterday got me just over $700, that’s not great news either. But I feel as though I’ve got bigger fish to fry.

To join the ranks of a long list of webloggers, going all the way back to the livejournal days (which some are still in, Zach), I think it’s time to bear my soul to the blog. Oh yes, my soul.

I am thinking about not staying, that is, I am thinking about breaking my contract early, and going home. Home to Connecticut and home to Kansas City. Now why would I do such a thing? Why wouldn’t I do such a thing.  Here’s what I’m thinking:

I am not altogether unhappy here. Actually, there are many things that are quite nice, that I am very pleased with. The kids that I teach, particularly the kindergarteners are incredible! I enjoy many of my co-workers and my director is a wonderful man, Mr. Choi (pronounced ‘Chay’) by name. The other foreign teachers, a couple from California have been a blast to get to know. Not to mention that I am currently making more money than any other time in my life.

On the other hand, however, my life is quite difficult. Not only is this job demanding in terms of time and energy, it is very difficult, that is, difficult for me to teach such young children. I have come to love them very much, but I seem to suck at teaching them English. My feedback (from upset/angry parents, through my co-teachers, to me): the children [of some classes] have considerable difficulty understanding me, I go too fast and don’t explain. OR I go too slow and don’t cover all the material I need to.

Now, any thinking person would say – Chris! Just make the appropriate changes and fix the problem! I know. But I am on about the third round of hearing these comments, i.e. (I hear the comments, I make changes, I hear the comments again)3x. It’s very disconcerting. I have always said that, for me, the younger kids are, the harder they are to teach. And there’s only one category harder to teach than elementary school for me: elementary school whose first language is not english. It is also so very difficult to teach a subject (language) about which I have so much passion, but at a level that is too far below what I love about it. It’s like teaching Calculus to kindergarteners – one can only teach a small fraction of what, to me, the subject is really all about.

I can’t help but think back to my life in Kansas City. Sure, it wasn’t all rosy. Sure I couldn’t even make ends meet. But I was so happy. I was (slowly) on my way to the things I cared about. I was teaching at the Daniel Academy – an awesome gig. I was getting closer to joing the Greek faculty at FSM. Gosh, even the summer before I left, when I tutored Jordan Noto in Greek for 9 hours a week for 3 months: one of the fondest memories of my life. The International House of Prayer is a wonderful place for many reasons I won’t bother to ennumerate here, but I just feel like that had to be said.

But more than all this situational stuff, I had in Kansas City, for the first time in a long while, good, healthy friendships. A whole network of friends and accountability and comrades who really understood me and were with me in their hearts. They still are. (A shout out to all those who are with me in your heart!) And here, there are a very few people, two or three of whom maybe do anything close to understanding me. And they are over an hour away.

Those who know me well (and those who have just met me) know that I am a hopeless extrovert, that being with people is what gives me energy and being alone is what drains me. Well, outside of work, excluding every second weekend or so, I see nary a proximate soul with whom to converse, argue against or be with. Probably greater than 60% of my conversations are with my beloved ones over the internet, many of whom have a consonant message: We miss you. When are you coming home? That hurts. They don’t hurt, no, my life hurts.

So, I suppose I’m looking to see if there are any reasons I should go or stay. The good Lord seems to be silent to my queries of what I should do, though it should be noted that my relationship with him has gone somewhat akimbo (bent, I know it’s a stretched metaphor) since I’ve been here. I honestly don’t quite know what to do. I’m just bein’ honest.

I’m sure I’ll continue to talk about this in the posts to come. Uhmmm… Stay.. Tuned?

Back again after another nice and long week at school. Things have been pretty good in the ol’ Seoul and it seems time for an update. (I think I will post-pone the second half of my commute pictures, they’re kind of boring – at least I’m bored with them)

Perhaps the biggest new development is that tonight a Californian couple are coming to stay in my apartment. They are the newest teachers at Brighton, replacing the wonderful Canadian couple who leaves this coming week. This new couple might be staying with me as long as a week, or as short as three days. I pretty well have no idea what to expect, so I am just abuzz with excitement.

By the way, for all those Canada lovers out there reading my blog, Both Sean and Sara, the Canadians grew up in Ancaster, just outside of Hamilton, ON.

At any rate. I’ve been getting some nice logicstics things out of the way: I have my alien resident card, I cajoled my director into advancing my pay a little bit so that I could better take care of these incoming teachers. It seems to be working out well.

Fortunately for all of you out there who would like to see my apartment, It’s about to get a thorough cleaning in preparation for their arrival at 11pm tonight. So I’ll clean and take some pictures before then.

Okay! Sorry if the logistical stuff is mostly boring, but hey – boring is mostly life

This past weekend was my sister Elizabeth’s senior recital. Awesomely, it was videotaped by my aunt and uploaded to the marvelous World Wide Web by my cousin. Please take a listen, she’s so great! I love you Liz!

Liz’s Incredible Recital!

Well, I have been meaning to continue on this journey by showing you pictures of my apartment here in Seoul, but to be perfectly honest – I haven’t seemed to find the time to clean it up enough to be presentable enough for company.

So instead, I will take you to work with me. I actually have a bit of a long commute – about 45 minutes every morning. It’s so long, I’m going to actually break it into two posts. I wasn’t planning on doing this initially, but as it turns out, my camera battery died right before I got on the subway. So the following is part one: the first half of my commute. Behold the glories of Kkachisan!

Right outside my door, on the fourth floor. Down the flights of stairs,

To the front door. Then out into the wider world of the far east.

Ooo… A blue truck – This truly is a land of enchantment and mystery! Say, this shot reminds me an awful lot of Myst. Remember Myst everybody?

Take a left (i. e. hang a louie) outside of the garage/overhang and peer around the side of the next building to the narrow streets beyond.

First block. Mostly brick buildings, some have fun gates like on the left. Dad, you could totally take a 55 passenger bus on these ridiculously narrow streets.

Next block. This is the little corner store where I get my water and milk. It is owned and operated by a crazy and cool Korean woman named Patty. She had a joking relationship (technical anthropological term) with Ryan H., the teacher I’m replacing. A fun little shop.

Alright, now we’re getting somewhere! The first of three turns. Get ready to turn right! Are you ready? Set… Go!

Another nice gate The “san” of Kkachisan means ‘mountain’ (cognate of the Mandarin Chinese ’shan’ [ 山] ). The point is, I live near the top of big hill. Going down…

Nice. This is the Asia I signed up for. I have just started to skip pictures. The whole album may very well be up on facebook, but this will be the more story-ied version. On another note, there is a certian refreshing freedom with power lines, eh?

In the thick of things. These are taken, true to my story, in the morning on my way to work, a little before 9:00 am. The left-facing swastikas on the right are Buddhist, um.. places. If you were wondering. Alright, coming up on the second turn, a left.

Left taken. This is the longest stretch of the route to the subway station. I very well may come to know what some or most of these signs mean in the future, but for now, I’m completely lost in translation.

Ah, the well worn path. These streets are complete stimulation overload, as might imagine – especially at night. Okay, were coming the the biggest intersection in this little neighborhood. We’re going straight through, but we need to look both ways before we cross the street…

First look left. It seems pretty clear after this taxi passes…

Now look right. If you don’t faint from the advertising, you’re all set

Last corner. We’re taking a left – just through the market then on to the station.

A charming open air market. I didn’t take any pictures inside because not too many places are open at this time of day. I may show you around Kkachisan Market some other time, if I don’t feel too awkward/embarresed/intrusive taking pictures of everybody and everthing.

And we reached the station! Um.. wait – oh, we need to look left:

There it is! Now if that doesn’t look like something out of Myst or Sci-Fi or the Future I don’t know what does!

And here we go, down, down, down into the heart – the very belly of the city. I have a few more pictures, but I think I’ll save them for the next post. I really do live in a very cool place, if a little hard to get to. Imagine trying to give directions to get someone to my house. Or worse yet, imagine following directions to my house!

Well that’s all from me tonight. Love y’all and I’ll repost soon.

Even more jet-lagged than we should have been, my new Korean friend and I woke up sometime in the 4:00 am hour. We turned on the TV and watched a little news, then went down to check out breakfast. It was a good breakfast…

Yeah, I guess this part of the story is pretty boring. But hey! There were all these cool crystal chandeliers. Here are the pictures I took.

This was kind of the basic idea. these long thin shards of crystal suspended from the ceiling with lights above. These four were above where we had been waiting in line the previous night.

A thicker variety, this one was in the elevator. They all have mirrored ceilings above them too, or at least reflective surfaces. A very nice effect.

This monstrous one was on the way to the resturaunt. It was absolutely breathtaking “irl” (‘in real life’ for those not up on the ‘internet’ jargon), but I don’t think this quite conveys all of its majesty.

Last one, this was in the foyer. All spherical and such, it was a great innovation on the theme.

Well, enough about chandeliers. Breakfast opened at 6:00am, and we tried to be slow, but try as we might, we just couldn’t have a 2 hour breakfast. Trying to kill time until my 12:30 pm flight, I had still about 5 hours to go. We decided to go back to the Airport by the time it hit 9:00 am. It was all pretty normal until I got on the plane, until we got to the gate where there was wonderful furniture sculpture garden for people to sit and lie down on. I’d show pictures, but I think I’ve put enough for this post. Check out facebook. After two hours of waiting together, I parted ways with Mr. Lee, trading info should we want to see each other again.

The flight on Korean Air was great. They served some strange, unidentifiable food of bright yellow-orange color and indeterminate flavor. It was nice. I had wanted to see the famous thousands of church steeples as you fly into Seoul, but there was unfortunately so much cloud cover that I couldn’t see any of the city until we were practically on the landing strip. Next time, I guess. This is where the interesting level of the story starts picking back up.

So, by some miracle of God and man, my checked bags were actually there at the Seoul/Incheon Airport. To this day I still can’t quite believe that they were there. So, immigration, customs, and then I made my way out of security to the wide world beyond.

So, now I went out and, well, let me tell you first what I expected. I expected someone from the school, like my co-workers to take me and my luggage to my new home. But this is how it actually turned out. Waiting outside the door was a Korean man with a sign that had my name and the name of another girl, Courtney, who was coming in at the same time as me.

‘Great!’ I thought, there’s someone else coming – I’ll be able to chat with her as we drive into Seoul together, and have someone to debrief a little bit with.” Well, the Korean gentleman bade me sit down on a nearby bench as we both waited for Courtney, who came out in about 10 minutes. He then led her away, presumably to the van, telling me to ‘Wait here’ in English as broken as a Desert Streams intern. He returned in another 10 minutes, though he started to escort me in the opposite direction. Curious, I thought, as I quickly lost hope for an English conversation in my near future. My eyes wide open in astonishment, he simply led me to an airport shuttle bus, put my luggage in the undercarriage, and told me “Mok-Dong Station.” He gave profuse explanation to the bus driver that I must get off on said Mok-Dong station. He was not to come with me apparently. As the doors were closing, he told me again, “Mok-Dong Station. One hour.” One hour?! The bus lumbered away.

On the one hand, I was dead tired, all I wanted to do was sleep. On the other hand, I was now riding the bus in the country of my new home and would be a terrible thing not to look out upon it, take in the landscape, gray though it was that day. Even so, my life depended on getting off at Mok-Dong Station, so my ears were straining to hear every stop so I would not get myself in the sort of trouble I wouldn’t be able to get out of.

About an hour later, Mok-dong station is announced as the next stop. But before the bus driver starts to drive there from the previous stop, he comes to the back of the bus to find me, making me stand up front so I don’t miss it. Partially blinded and completely overloaded with the stimuli that is an asian city, a convergence of excitement, dread, weariness and something else (mild epilepsy?) all bore down on me at once as the bus pulled up to the stop at Mok-dong station. I got out with my laptop and my shoulder bag, completely overwhelmed.

I looked around outside and I didn’t see any station, I can’t even find the entrance at first glance. Happily, it took only about 15 seconds before I turned around to see a minivan pull up to the curb and a skinny, bookish korean man come out to greet me. He introduces himself with a name familiar to me, Mr. Choi, the director of my school. I shake his hand and then he asks me a fascinating question. “Where is your luggage?”

Oh. No. Realization comes over me all of a sudden. My luggage is still under the bus. I don’t even really remember what the bus looks like! I mean it was only less than half a minute ago, but, but, Oh my goodness what are we going to do. Mr. Choi didn’t mince words, we both jumped in the van and he barrelled down the busy road after the bus. Amid the, perhaps, 10 buses that were around, I spotted mine and Mr. Choi pulled up next to it. After an excited conversation from Mr. Choi’s rolled down window through the open bus door at a red light, it seemed that the driver would give up the luggage at his next stop. He did, we got the luggage and put in the van and finally made our way off the main roads to some side streets, to even smaller and narrower streets, ending up at a small apartment building of four stories. Of course, the apartment is on the fourth floor. The stairwell lights turning on automatically as we climbed, we arrived at the door of my new home.

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Flight 815

Ah, Oceanic flight 815 (from the show LOST, if you don’t know). My trans-pacific flight was not nearly as eventful as theirs, but there was still a thing or two to write home about

So there I was, one week ago today: Tuesday the 21st. At long last I set out from Kansas City to Minneapolis for my first connection of my first pacific flight of my first year in Korea. Lauren and Tineke lovingly drove me to the airport. Just as we were arriving at our terminal, I made a slightly harrowing realization. Those who know me well know that I am a notorious leaver-of-things-in-places, and of all the things I left at Lauren’s house (about 50 minutes away) was my passport. Great. Off to a good start, Chris. Franticly calling all our friends, finally the great Michelle N got it and drove all the way to the airport to bring it to me. Incredible. I love that girl so much.

A nice Muslim lady helped me get a new connection while we were waiting. I was so excited when she came over and told us, that I wanted to hug her , unfortunately that is against her religion. So I settled on a handshake. Also against her religion. So I settled on her shaking Lauren’s hand. It was a nice flight to Minneapolis. Getting there about two hours before my next connection, the gate was empty. I did what I usually do: found the food court in search of chinese food. When I returned to the gate, there was a veritable multitude of about 500 people milling about the gate. It took me a few minutes to realize that they were all getting on our same flight. Taking a seat, I braced myself for the longest flight of my life, about thirteen hours.

After we took off, I discovered that I was seated next to a young Korean fellow. He was 23 years old and named Sang Moo Lee. Sang Moo had just returned from eight months studying English in Boston and was returning to his hometown in Busan (the main port city in the southern part of South Korea). When I asked him what he wanted to do in his life, he merely told me that he wanted to go into politics. And that he wanted to be the President of Korea. I liked him instantly.

About three or four hours in, a strange, almost movie-like request was made over the intercom. “If there is a doctor on board, please come up to the front of the airplane.” As it turned out, a woman on our flight had a heart attack while we were in the air. We had to make an emergency stop in Anchorage, Alaska. Now,you might say, ‘Anchorage, Alaksa?! That’s rediculusly out of the way! Why not stop in Honolulu or somewhere else in the Pacific?’ Actually it turns out, as my geometry students might tell you, Anchorage is right between is right between Minneapolis and Tokyo. Take a look

We were grounded for about two hours.

When we finally got to Tokyo, it was the maddest of zoos, since everyone had missed their connections. The last time something like this had happened to me was at Christmas time (for onething) when US Airways had a massive sick-out. When I arrived at Washington/Dulles, and found out that my flight to Kansas City had just left and the next flight was late next morning. When I asked the attendant for a hotel voucher she simly said, ‘Sir, we are bankrupt. No hotels will accept our vouchers.’ I had to sleep in the airport that night and I was just as prepared to spend this night in the Tokyo airport.

Fortunately, after 3/4 hour of waiting in line, I got a connected flight for 12:33 pm the next day, and a hotel voucher. After I made it through Japanese immigration and customs, I found that I was neck in neck with that same Korean guy whom I sat next to on the plane. I said to him, ‘Y’know, we are both flying out in the morning, do you want to get the hotel room together, just to stick together for fun?’ He agreed, and I had someone to spend the next sixteen hours with. We found the bus to the Nikko Narita hotel, and when we arrived there was another long, long line of folks at the front desk, all from our flight, waiting for their room assignments.

Another hour in line, carrying all our stuff (not our checked bags, thank God), and we finally got our room on the sixth floor. A most wonderful blessing, the free night stay also included dinner and breakfast at their lowest level restaurant. We were starving, and the food was completely delicious. There was even a sushi chef who prepared some delicious sushi. Now I can say that I’ve actually eaten sushi in Japan. Andrew Switzer eat your heart out

I guess I could finish the story, but It’s long enough to make another whole post. I’ll just stop here. Are you not riveted?!

To be continued!

“How can you connect in an age when strangers, landlords, lovers, your own bloodcells betray…” That slightly dark line from RENT serves as the segue to my very happy blog post, which will not, in fact, be my deep thoughts about meaningful relationships.

Indeed I mostly just have to say that I finally found and was able to purchase a power adapter so that I can plug in my laptop. So interesting, that all that has stood between me and everyone/everything back home was this little piece of metal and plastic. Well, no – it’s not that interesting, but here we are

I have already had many adventures here in Korea, but I must write about them in the correct order, so as not to confuse. This is just a quick note to say that I have not neglected my blog, just needed a little plug.

Here we go…

I suppose it started my junior year of high school. I read this book. ‘Fermat’s Enigma’ by Simon Singh.
Empowered by the Dewey Decimal system, whenever I went to a library, I would go to the beginnings of the 500s (the 510s, to be exact) and look for the math books.

I don’t know when math started to fascinate me. In elementary school, I was terrible at math. It was awful – they would have these “Mad Minute” multiplication worksheets: 60 mulitplication problems to do in a minute. I would never get past five or six of them. The whole way through, arithmetic was a struggle. Perhaps it was the way it was taught, I always had trouble.

When I got to high school, things started to change. As I sat in algebra class, I found that it was so very, very easy. And very, very fun. There was a beauty in learning this new language, and a great beauty in the sorts of things that could be expressed in it. The FOIL method (you know, like (5x+2)(3x-1)). That’s when it all started to turn around for me. My high school arranged for me to take more math classes at a local community college where I learned calculus. It was so wonderful. Those classes were during my junior year of high school.

Back to this book. I’m not sure why I picked it up. I’d heard about Fermat’s last theorem (perhaps first in the Guinness book of World Records). It seemed pretty straightforward. It was especially enigmatic because the question was so very, very simple, but the proof had eluded mathematicians from 1637 when he wrote it, until the proof in 1995! Many other unsolved problems in mathematics (the Riemann Zeta hypothesis, for instance) are unbelievably difficult to even explain, let alone trying to come up with anything like a solution.

But Fermat’s Last Theorem is easily understood by anyone who knows the Pythagorean theorem, that the square of the long side of a right triangle is equal to the sum of the squares of the other sides.  or a^2 + b^2 = c^2. Now there are many whole number solutions to this problem. Like the triangle where a = 3, b = 4, and c = 5. Try it out!

Fermat’s theorem states that though this works for powers of 2, it doesn’t work for 3 or 4 or for any whole number greater than 2. That’s it. Proving that to be true took 357 years. Fermat himself, was kind of a jerk. And he wrote the following in the margin of a math book when he figured it out.

I have discovered a truly marvelous proof of this, which this margin is too small to contain.

Jerk. He wrote many other things in many other margins. Some with half-worked-out proofs, some with nothing. And one by one, every single thing he said was proven to be true or false. Every single one. But this was the last one that persisted far longer than any other.

When I read “Fermat’s Enigma,” my eyes were opened to the rich and fascinating story of the history of this proof. All sorts of colorful characters, heroes, and scoundrels are wrapped up in its history. There was Sophie Germain, the woman mathematician who wrote with a pen name (Monsieur La Blanc) to K. F. Gauss, demonstrating her great skill before revealing her female identity. There was E. Galois, the brilliant teenage mathematician and political dissident. He died in a duel when he was 20 years old, but the night before, he stayed up all night and wrote his entire mathematical system (referred to as Galois theory). He finished, went to the duel and was killed. There was even P. Wolfskehl, who had planned to commit suicide, but having planned so meticulously the time of his death, found himself with a few hours of free time. He got distracted by this theorem, and worked on it all night. Seeing the sun rise, and himself still alive, he considered this fiendish theorem truly to have saved his life.

Anyway, I was fascinated and enthralled by the whole story, and its great culmination of Andrew Wiles solving the proof in 1995. I started my life on a path of math from that point, all the way until I discovered other languages. I loved math, but I also loved Greek (the first language I ever took), and that one fateful night when Sara Pompper showed me the deep connection between math and linguistics. (And taking a course in Topology later on convinced me out of a math carrer).

So why write about all this? Well it is a key part of my own development and journey, but there is a more immediate reason. My brother David gave his old iPod to my mother, and I have been listening to it during my temporary job (which ends this week). Dave, suffice it to say, is a musical theatre professional – he’s in a national touring company of Sweeny Todd right now. Hundreds of musicals, both great and obscure are on this iPod ready to be discovered by me. Such hidden gems as “Zombie Prom,” or “110 in the Shade” or even “A Very Merry Unauthorized Children’s Scientology Paegant”.

I found “Fermat’s Last Tango.” An extremely obscure show, Fermat’s Last Tango is a musical all about the solving of this proof. Robert Keane (they changed Andrew Wiles’ name to this) is on the verge of solving the problem and some wonderful craziness happens. The roadblocks in the theorem are enfleshed by a portrayal of Fermat himself, and much of the musical centers on the relationship between Keane, his wife, and Fermat. Along with a somewhat zany plotline about where mathematicans go when they die, the ‘Aftermath’ with a singing and dancing Pythagoras, Euclid, Isaac Newton, and Karl Freidrich Gauss.

Now, why does this impress me so much? Well, it was incredibly awesome! I had a more-than-cursory understanding of this whole thing from the start, and I could connect with the math, etc, but that’s not mostly why I am spending a whole blog post on it. Rather, this musical represents to me a wonderful and important work. Two very different fields of study, two distant worlds from each other: number theory in mathematics, and musical theatre. The writers of this musical were able to take this important and wonderful mathematical story, and give it as a gift in the language of a completely different discipline.

This gets at the heart of my vision for my life in intercultural communication. There are such wonderful things in different communities, such beauty and glory in so many things. But much of it is so inaccessible to those in different traditions and in different languages. But oh for a person or people who can translate -  not just a word-for-word, a stiff and wooden equivalency, but a true transfer of truth and beauty across disciplines, across culture groups, and across oceans. Fermat’s Last Tango has strengthened my heart, my resolve, and my calling.

And I loved it.

My whirlwind tour has come to an end after about two and a half weeks. It is truly the blessedness of life to be in so many life-giving relationships. Where did these people come from? How did we come to love each other so much? Why must we part ways? I just don’t know.

Attachment and separation. Attachment and separation. It seems to be a theme in my life, and I don’t quite know what to do about it. I truly desire to grow in mature love with those whom Jesus has given me, but physical distance seems to grow among us.

Leaving Houghton and leaving Kansas City were events of different kind. In Houghton, it was impossible to stay – the community there simply ceased to be as we exploded into a worldwide diaspora, with a notable ghetto in Buffalo. It was a violent transition, leaving Houghton – rather like a birthing from the safety of the womb to the harsh lines, bright lights and loud noises of the outer world.

Leaving Kansas City was a decision. A kind of challenge to my mantra, that nothing is more important to me than relationships and authentic community. Though I still believe this to be true, I cannot escape that nagging feeling that, in a mixing of the desires to get out of debt, to grow in maturity, to grow in skills, I am destined for great things. Is this some kind of male ambition? Is this some kind of God-given call on my life? Only many years hence do I have any hope for clarity concerning these tremulous twenties.

The thrill of the newness of life and relationships to come fuels my heart with anticipation and hope and happiness, while the pain of separation leaves an abiding sadness. Having returned from this trip, seeing so many whom I love so dearly does not relieve this pain but rather makes it more acute. The community and friendship I so desire is scattered in a dozen cities across America and the world.

This perhaps is one thing that so gives me hope about the age to come. There are days coming when the pain of separation will be no more. When I will truly be able to share my life together and my heart flow with love unhindered. I cannot imagine a greater fate for my life than the one Jesus has already dreamed, envisioned, and has begun to lead us all through. To me, you are all worth it, oh dear friends of mine. Thank you so much for sticking with me in heart.

As the body of Christ, and as a community of love, we truly belong to each other.