Lent Back Nine

April 2, 2019 – GVAàAMS

A day trip to the office in Amsterdam, originally planned for a bunch of meetings which several people now can’t attend, so I will fly to the Netherlands mainly to participate in videoconferences that I could have done from home. 

Lent reading this morning was the parable of the prodigal son, and a bit from 2 Corinthians about regarding no one according to the flesh.  This, coupled with some of Laurence’s sermon from last Sunday, led me to a tidy summary of God’s message to man via Christ: “You’re all fucked up, but it’s okay.”  (also lends itself well to repeated chanting)

April 6, 2019 – GVA B gates

One of those early spring days in Geneva when there’s still a slight chill in the air, but some of the trees (I want to say alders but that’s probably completely wrong) are sporting precocious leaves, and you know that by the time you return from a week in Boston (where it will still be cold and grey) all the leaves in Geneva will have come out. 

Flying transatlantic on a Saturday feels like the definition of “free time,” since you have a whole non-workday after you land.  This is an illusion, of course.  The same amount of work which will be waiting for me on Sunday night is waiting for me now.  But I will have the chance to sleep in a little tomorrow before going to the MS Walk and, and then I’ll get to see Mia play soccer at 6.  Part of me wants to have a few drinks on the flight over, but there’s really no point.

Through the glass barrier to my left, people are getting off the plane that I’ll soon be getting onto.  Tired parents dragging children with zoomorphic roller bags.  Young girls in leggings and neck pillows, clutching mobile phones.    

April 7, 2019 – Cambridge, MA

My flight last night arrived a little early, and I wasn’t feeling too tired, so I drove to the Plough and Stars in Central Square to see a band.  I kind of knew the guitar player, who was in a band with someone else whom I was in a different band with years ago, so we were connected through the Transitive Property of Rock Bands.  I was pleasantly surprised to see that I didn’t stand out as the oldest person in the room: there were certainly a lot of student-aged types there, as one would expect in Cambridge, but also a lot of what I probably would have called “aging rocker” types, a category to which I probably belong myself.  Several men with grey beards and ample guts and horned-rim glasses.  Also a few of those deadpan record store types, one of whom, with long, straight hair and numb affect, sidled up next to me.

I realize that this is not really my scene: the music was fun, but I don’t feel super-drawn to the loudness and the booziness and the ringing skull the morning after.  There’s a certain romanticism to driving all over the US in a van (as this band does), but late nights in divey bars with rotating sets of mostly drunken people is something I would get very tired of very quickly.  At the same time, there was something beautiful about the scene: people who were not 20-something making music, and smiling while doing so.

Lent reading this week focuses on parenthood.  There’s a strong pro-adoption angle on the CTBI website, and it is nice to see so much space given here to people in “nontraditional” family situations: for instance, those who might be uncomfortable during “Mothering Sunday” service (which is evidently a thing, although my church didn’t do anything with it).  The Bible readings cover this as well: on the cross (Jn 19:25), Jesus bestows a mother/son relationship upon Mary and “the disciple whom he loved” (probably John).  And there is a mysterious passage in Luke (Lk 2:33), in which Simeon the quasi-mystic tells Joseph and Mary that their son is a big deal, but also that “…a sword will pierce through your own soul.”  This probably refers to the crucifixion, but part of my wants to read it also as a more general statement about that feeling when your children grow up and become their own people and you become less important to them.  I may be projecting.

April 9, 2019 – Cambridge, MA

I left the office after 7pm and took the red line to Harvard Square, where I walked around in the drizzly chill, picking up some things at Lush for the twins’ birthday.  I poked around the Harvard Book Store for a while, but emerged with only a used collection of E.B. White essays.  I gave a dollar to the homeless guy sitting outside.  I recall how it used to be acceptable to refer to people like this as “bums.” 

April 13, 2019 – British Airways Lounge, Terminal E, Boston Logan Airport

I felt a curtain of sadness fall when I was leaving my apartment in Cambridge for the airport tonight.  I’m not sure why: I will be extremely happy to be back home after a long and trying week.  I won’t be back in Cambridge again for more than a month, and as I turned the thermostats down, I imagined the empty apartment, with a few of my second-tier suits hanging in the closet, and some stray dirty laundry in the hamper.  Like a dead person’s house before the next of kin can get in there and clean things out.

Jose, who works at the BA lounge in Boston, always says hello and shakes my hand when he sees me here.  We don’t have much to say to each other, but it’s nice to say hello, and I’m always impressed at his friendliness, which seems genuine.  And out of place in a transient place like an airport lounge.  But every place is transient, in a certain sense.   I watch the Masters on TV in the window reflection.  Everyone swings left-handed except for Phil Mickelson.

Like I said it was a difficult week at work, but I found myself comforted by Philippians 3:12 (“Not that I…am already perfect, but I press on to make it [the resurrection] my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own.”).  I feel my heart warmed especially by the “press on” line, even though what Paul is writing about has absolutely nothing to do with pharmaceuticals.  People look for encouragement wherever they can find it, even if the context is all wrong.  The Bible is a target-rich environment for this.  I believe this is what one would call cognitive bias.