I love the internet! I love google! and facebook, myspace too! It has been a blast getting back in touch with people from my past. I'm talkin' waaaaay back! I've reconnected with my best friend from high school; we hadn't seen each other for about 25 years! we still only have virtual contact, but it's a start. She is doing what she always dreamed of doing: acting and teaching others the art, whether at University or at their non-profit community children's theater. Then Eric was a guy i worked with in my waitressing days. My girlfriends and I were big fans of B-Time, his band back then. Thanks to google, I found Eric now as a full time musician in Nashville, gone totally country and cranking out albums with the band Last Train Home. Our contact is also still just digital, but I'm hoping to be back dancing in front of his stage like in the good old days, when they return to Germany (maybe next year?). Cara Luft already had a guitar growing out of her belly when she was a student at Holsby in Sweden, where i was on staff, so it is not too big of a surprise to find out that she is making her mark on the Canadian Folk scene. I love her new album, and am nuts over the trio The Wailin' Jennys, which she started, but left recently to pursue her solo career. And it IS a small world! She is dating a guy who is in the Celtic rock band, Spirit of the West. One of their guys is also in my favorite band the Paperboys!! So, I'm told, my chances of getting to meet them are pretty good next time they role around!! Another student from Holsby days has blossomed into a vibrant and radiant artist. Kelly is painting, doing art installations, photography and hopefully will get around to illustrating an awesome new kids book for me. She has also started her own company, Messy Monkeys, which does team building for corporations through very out of the box, artsy play. Lothar Schöneck is a graphic artist, who also does installation art. He is a long time friend of Jan's and is also one of my favorite people. So why am I telling you all of this? Because I want you to check out their links on my blog under "Check it Out." The artists, the musicians, the "out-of-the-box" thinkers are just so valuable for our societies, for culture AND YES for our faith communities! Unfortunately I have witnessed and experienced that it is just these forward, out-of-the box thinkers who get run out of institutional religion. And perhaps nowhere more so than here in Germany. (as an aside, I believe that WW2 left a gaping deficit of creative and intuitive people, which is eerily tangible in many aspects of the culture even today). This is a tragedy! It is as if we are deliberately plugging up the holes where the light and fresh air come in. Isn't that what they call suicide?
Of course i know that not everyone shares my taste, but that is not the point. Expose yourself to something new!!
