Dear Family and Friends,

We are reflecting on what's happened these past four weeks, having just completed the first part of our pilgrimage. The sabbatical was to begin June 24 with an initial entry time devoted to visiting museums in NYC and elsewhere in preparation for the journey. Given the intensity of the past two months with more than a few pastoral challenges this period was spent in less leisurely pursuits. We did manage three fabulous weddings and a trip to Grounds for Sculpture in Hamilton, NJ . We will go back there often in the months to come. It is quite stunning and refreshing and whole families should go. Next time either family visits, it will be on the agenda. Just terrific. The acres of property are arranged for the over 200 substantial sculptures. Water features, paths, landscaping are all meaningfully arranged. So we had that moment, but we were still pretty wound up by the time the ride came to JFK.

The first phase of travel was a sandwich. The initial purpose was to visit Lamberts Glass but that was bookended by Munich and Prague. Munich was a wild time meeting up with our son Austin, who was finishing two years working for Bus2Alps, his work based in Rome. He came up from Florence, and met us on our first full day. We spent time on bikes or visiting museums, baroque churches, and of course, bier gardens. He took in some surfing the Eisbach, while we watched, of course. The eisbach is a river in downtown munich having a permanent wave across one section. Surfers in wetsuits - eisbach means iceriver - test their skills for thirty seconds apiece by turns. Munich is a huge bike city and the chimes ringed by the bikers through the crowds is a lasting aural memory. The history of a city rebuilt from rubble is quite a story. The old buildings are exact replicas built in the 1940-80's. There are a few old authentic structures. Then there are these stark modern cubist things, the subject of one of my blog poems (www.getabiggergod.blogspot.com). Austin and i were arguing about style. The communal nature of the city is refreshing for those of us used to NY. The rococo style of things is also unusual. Few examples of it exist in the states, some might add, happily. Acanthus leaves, those things at the top of Corinthian columns, grow like the plague over everything in the building. Fun, and as they frequently adorn glass caskets of formerly famous people now bejeweled skeletons, the plaster leaves and guilt clutter make for a sure impression. There are significant art collections in Munich and we experienced them all. Then there is the food and beer and leather shorts on men and great fun band music. Wagner was on at the state opera but it was sold out and I think our son would have balked.

DeutschBahn is a model for how to get around. Far better than by car. So off to Waldsassen in East Bavaria close to the Czech border. Lamberts glass (http://www.lamberts.de/) is the factory making mouth blown sheet glass. The US importers the one who got the idea for this whole trip idea started 12 years ago. The owners welcomed us graciously and we stayed at the apartment above the factory. First night we were invited to join at the Zoigl -a unique east Bavarian thing where a pub is open only five days a month when the Zoigl beer is ready. Food was great too! The glass blowing in a 24 hour thing. Glass blowing start at 4 am through 10 followed by the reload of the furnaces and the careful tending and mixing of the boiling silica brew through to the next day. While there we met another artist in from Korea, Fr. Cho, who is really a force of nature. He has convinced us of our next trip. His glass work is frigging huge by any standard. Huge. We all took a class there in silcone lamination technique. Watch out! We were all trading ideas and Fr. Cho is expecting to collaborate in the years to come.

The Czech train from Cheb to Prague was something out of Harry Potter ( for HP fans there is a St. Norbet's Monastery and thier beer is the best ever, which on this trip is saying something). Our hotel in Prague was just feet away from the justly famous Charles Bridge. Still a quiet respite from a city overrun by us tourists. Austin gave us some marching orders as he had returned to Florence after four days with us in Munich. Gloulash, the castle, and a place called U Felcku. We found music was the biggest part. Concerts in fabulous churches ( see blog again). Perhaps the highlight was the National Theater, the prestine most prestigius example of Art Nouveau we have ever or ever will likely see. We couldn't believe it survived and in such fabulous condition. Impossible to really describe. Every detail. Every tile. Every chandelier, every stick of furniture, every stage, every seat. Like rococo but in that sleek clean manner of deco. We took in a jazz show there - opera singers and musicians playing Brahms and Mozart improv and scat ( blog ). And all there inside that building.

We are writing from Athens just after a 16 hour trains planes and automobile transfer. Good time to reflect before the Acropolis. You can imagine how many toasts we have made in three languages now to Eli Lilly, our supportive families, friends, parish and diocese. The blog poems or only a few of what is pouring from a deep place, and are notably rough drafts. The IPad has been great for drawing and sketching as well as posting.

Well too early to summarize or even partially make a response to all this. Just a note to say this things seems entirely in the flow - flowing together with intention and purpose without the fight and anxiety. I know things continue - our thoughts and prayers for those who know who you are, as well as for larger contexts - Aurora.
Then there is they way we get news here. Another poem from that.

So we will chat again in a couple of weeks.

Love to you all,

Phil and Jan

Music in Prague

The home of Don Giovanni
Was a favorite for Mozart
Where his great opera premiered,
But his ghost takes holiday,
So the singers and artists
Make smaller events happen
In a baroque church chancel,
An art deco basement hall,
Or even a castle moat.

The crowds are not crowds at all,
But our appreciation
Gets them back for an encore:
A Jazz version of Brahms
With a mezzo soprano
Who sings scat like she's on fire
Dressed in a little black dress
With a quartet backing up
An improv out of heaven.

God only likes live music,
She does not own a player;
Resemblance is never real
And digital perfection
Is only a goal of Satan,
For the Lord sings and dances
And calls us to do the same
Not sitting on our asses
But list'ning live or sitting in.


Note: Prague is a marvelous old city.
The concerts we've enjoyed are wonderful
but lightly attended. Friend Doug once
observed that too few people go out to the
local scene. When we get back, forget
cable and Facebook. Live is better.

Four Thousand Colors

Heat and fire and silica, soda and lime
Combine like alchemy in Waldsassen.
They color with the sun here in Bavaria.

Decades of practiced hands and mouths
Turn molten glass into sheets of beauty.
Four thousand colors are born in their furnace.

Across day and night the kilns are tended,
Loaded and churned until the blend is achieved.
Everyone has their duty in this peculiar art.

Twirling out melt on hollow rods, they sling them
To others who blow out sheer cylinders of grace.
Industrial ballet in gauntlets and boots.

Each piece is a human project in glass
The extension of sweat, intention, skill and more sweat.
Unreproducible, irreplaceable, unique.

They color with the sun at Lambert's.

http://www.lamberts.de/impressionen.html

Late in the Platz

We stood in a platz at the end of the day
My son and I in high debate.
What ugly buildings, I complained,
And he complained of my complaint.
It all depends, was his retort.
Of course, he's right, but so am I:

The building in question had no soul,
Angle and pattern of grey on grey.
The deadening geometry of perfection
Repeating instrcution to an unwieldy universe:
There is no exception just right on right,
Wrong being other than ninety degree.

But who's to say there's wrong in rightness?
It's only beholding eyes that makes
What's in a soul or other judgments,
And that's not for me to say, he says.
The younger man pokes fun at his father,
Returning the older man's own past remark.

We've each been on both sides of the matter,
In taste there can be no argument.
But then we confront the outcome of others,
Unpleasing in aspect we decide on the spot.
Conjuring rules of good and commandment,
And summon the gods who confirm our lament.

The irony plays across his mind and mine,
By turns we recall each's own opposition;
Who's own offense is most offensive,
Or when which side was taken when.
Like other joists between us joined,
This one ends in the humilty of humor.

For the final winner is fine Augustiener,
A bierhalle named for the patron of Hippo.
The casks of ale so wonderously barreled,
In kind expectation of libations poured out
To further the arguments of old and new
Found among tables of happy participants.

The triumphant agreement for the lay architects
Is the juxtaposition of the country in question.
These hard angles of precision relenting
To the gartens and halles where the life is well lived.
Though daily sequestered by the affected efficient,
The heart of this people is as round as the keg.

Beauty Consumed

You don't visit Munich so much as eat your way across it
gathering as people do around picnic tables
for the most amiable of meals
and conversations
about many

things like you remember from holiday meals with family
reconstituted specifically for the occasion
when months of life and living
needed recounting
for all

with recollections of laughter and tears made more fluid
not only by the uncorked and uncapped
as by butter and roux
made thick

by the artist who was hidden by pans and clouds of heat
whose own satisfaction is the sated
palate and empty plate of
others

which reminds us as God may be Father Son and Holy Spirit
and all those other guilted holy monograms
before that and other things,
God cooks.

But First, A Wedding in Pittsburgh

Mars, PA to Marstrasse, De.


Ryan and Leanna wed with ease
and grace like they are
which made the sign stand out so.

Between planes and plans from there to here
was a sign for a town
named after the God of War.

Would you want that name for your home
and what is the prize
or pride for belligerence?

Should I take thought or care or just drive
and make the transfer
without the rush and delay?

But there was time to follow the thought
and take the turn to Mars
thinking it was about right.

How many times did we just drive on
and give it a thought
but kept on about the next.

Always next. Always Next. Always NEXT.
Screw the next damn thing.
I am getting off for Mars.

A right turn and then an easy yield
turned into downtown
without even a wormhole.

This simple Pennsylvania town
was less important
for being there as being a stop.

God knows if Mars could become Munich,
good people gone bad,
about the time of Adolf.

For the people of Munich are good
like anyplace else
and kind to the stranger, too.

Neither do they speak martian on Mars
nor Marienplatz,
just the language of the day.

Both are not life altering places
if you hope for it
but good lanes off the next road.

Summer Hymn

Praise my soul, the King of heaven; to his feet thy tribute bring;

Ransomed, healed, restored, forgiven, ever-more his praises sing;

Alleluia, Alleluia! Praise the everlasting King.                                               

In a time of recreation; summer grace on summer day,

Be within our hearts and bodies, while at home or far away.

Alleluia, Alleluia! Praise the God who blesses play.

Summer beauty all around us; breaking wave and gardens green;

Grow in us a deeper reverence while we live this holy scene.

Alleluia, Alleluia!  Praise God for a light routine.

 

Quiet days of warmest weather; lightening bug and butterfly,

Offer us a  slower living, breathing space for God most high.

Alleluia, Alleluia! Love in stillness multiply.
 

Seasons change but not your favor; Lord your grace is of alway

Soon the leaves will change their color; all your beauty on display.

Alleluia, Alleluia! Love us through each changing day.

Vacate

Better recreation than vacation

Some sage finger wags

About the time you pack to go away

Room is made for tomes of inspiration

Profit from prophet

When all you crave is nothing but nothing

So out damned spot of complication

No bard is welcome

For to no ant goes this sluggard with joy