English Only – Page 7

No Longer Strangers

“Hey, do you have five minutes? I’d like to do your hair for free!”
The question hit me by surprise as I was walking around the duty free area at the airport. Normally, I’m not a person who likes to be sold something to and I’m not into beauty products either, but I had some time until boarding and the guy just looked too friendly, so I agreed.

I expected him to tell me about some fancy new product which would make my life so much better. I expected him to sell me something I’d regret later on.

I didn’t expect what happened next.

He brushed my hair and started to straighten it. I am too lazy to do it most of the time, so I really enjoyed this extra service.
He asked me where I was going and what my life was like. We chatted about big city life and international food and how different people were. We exchanged the best advice on where to travel next.
He told me that he was from Bulgaria and how he had left his home country to start a career as a styling artist in New York City. And how he had ended up in a small place like Stuttgart. He admitted that he really struggled to connect with the always fast-paced, efficient and often brisk Germans.

We did not talk one word about beauty products or sales.

The ‘five minutes’ turned into twenty minutes and I left with straight smooth hair and a really big smile on my face. “Thank you for this treat”, I said as I walked out the booth. “No, thank you”, the guy replied. “I wanted to do your hair, but I got something much better: A real conversation with a nice person. You truly made my day.”

It doesn’t take much to change someone’s day for the better.
Little gestures, a few words – that’s all it takes to make someone feel welcome. You’re no longer a stranger. You belong.
Why don’t we do it more often?

Writing for Five Minute Friday today.

When You’re Stuck at a Wall

Cold.
Grey.
Impenetrable.

I take a step back to take in the vast magnitude of this wall.
I walk left, I turn back right.
Try to find a way across this barrier, but I always come back to the same grey spot.
I end up at this wall that has risen up around my heart.
I’m stuck.

In this dark night of the soul I circle around the same questions, I wrestle with the same doubts, I wonder how much longer I have to stay in this place.
I want to move on, get out of this place.
I long to go back to a time before the wall when everything seemed so simple and clear.
I grow restless and impatient.
I take a moment to pause and listen.

And that’s when it happens.

I hear a “what if” deep inside of me.

What if there’s no way back and I am meant to be here?
What if the beauty of the journey is not the destination but the movement in between?
What if the grey is actually a colored space to live in?
What if the wilderness is not an empty place but a home for weary travelers, creators, doubters and feeble believers?
What if being stuck is the call to surrender, grow and actually live?

Linking up with Five Minute Friday.

It’s Different Than You Think

Since I have lived in many different places, it happened quite a few times that people have asked me which of my homes is the best.
How can I even compare them? Each country and culture is so unique, all of them have their strengths and challenges, none is superior to the other.

“There is no better or worse. There is just different. In the most wonderful way.”

Every day we are surrounded by all kinds of people.
If I just glance around the people walking on the street, the students in my classroom, the friends I hang out with – I see diversity.
Our social media channels and political conversations are full of debates on how to create community in our diversity. There are too many voices that say some are better than others, there are too many boxes we sort each other in, there is too deep fear of the other that ultimately separates us from ourselves.

But what if we changed perspective for a moment?
What if we saw the people around us not as “the other”, but as mirrors of ourselves? What if we gave them the chance to reveal a little more to us about the world and what it means to be human?
What if we allowed each other to share a glimpse of the eternal together?

If we look closer, we are more connected than we think.
We are unique in our lives, characters and talents.
Each of our stories deserves to be told and heard.

There’s no better or worse.
We’re just different.
In the most wonderful way.

Writing for Five Minute Friday today.
Cover Photo: Pujohn Das on Unsplash

Is This My Life?

Get up.
Go to work. Teach class after class. Talk to students. Discuss with colleagues.
Go home. Quickly eat something. Grade papers or prepare for the next classes.
Look at all the emails and feel slightly under pressure: When should I do all that?
Fall into bed exhausted.

That’s what my life was like in the last few weeks.
Busy, exhausting, draining.
There’s a routine and I have no choice but to run with it.
So I functioned, but I haven’t really lived.

No matter how long we’ve been on this faith journey, it’s very easy to fall into a routine. Pray.
Go to church.
Say the right things at the right time.
Stay away from all the wrong things and people.
Keep up the facade of the perfect little Christian.
We look good, we function, but we aren’t actually thriving.

I have come to give them life. Life in abundance.

That’s what I cling to in weeks of stress and exhaustion and dullness.
Yes, our lives should have some sort of security and regularity, but it should never pen us in.
There has to be a place where we can be ourselves.
There always has to be space for spontaneity and an element of surprise.
There should always be time to dream.
There should always be time to do nothing at all and rest for a while.
There must always be time to live, live to the fullest.

Writing for Five Minute Friday today.

Fighting in the Dark

Last week didn’t start off too well.
On Tuesday I had to leave work early because a headache kept bothering me. By the time I made it home, a fever and cough joined in and I came down with the flu. For the last few days, I’ve just been at home in bed.
Being sick is never really beautiful.

Suddenly, I had all this time at my hand, which was kind of confusing at first.
I followed the news about the people suffering in Syria as the war rages on and the world continues watching.
I listened to a teenager explain the political dilemma on gun violence in the US after the Florida shooting.
I read up on ethical fashion and the damage our outrageous materialism does to other people and the ecosystem.
I worried about all the work I couldn’t do now and how much behind that would put me.
I looked out the window into beautiful sunshine, only to remember that I was too sick to go outside.
No, this week was definitely not beautiful.

Depending on our focus, this life can quickly become exhausting and dull and hopeless.
This world can so easily drain life and its sense for beauty.

In weeks like this one, it’s not easy to find beauty, so I have to fight for it even harder.
I look out for the sunshine and bask in the rays that made it through my window.
I decide not to worry about all the undone work, but instead enjoy the time of rest I have been given.
I dive into a good novel and get lost in the story, simply because I have the time for it.
I appreciate that I don’t have to set any alarm clock but can just sleep however long my body needs to.
I pause and pray and hope for the One who sees it all and creates beauty in the midst of all our mess.

In a world darkened with suffering and pain and confusion, we can need any sense of beauty we can get. So tell me, where have you discovered beauty this week?

Writing for Five Minute Friday today.

Going Beyond My Own World

I admire my friends.
They impress me with the way they live their lives, challenge themselves, travel around the world, invest in people, grow through hardships, persevere in the darkness.

One thing I admire about them is that they are brave with their thoughts.
They open themselves to all kinds of ideas and stories and surround themselves with people from all kinds of lifestyles.
They subscribe to channels that tell them a different story.
They engage in discussions and allow themselves to be challenged by opposing views.

I must admit, I’m not always that brave.

There are conversations I rather avoid because they make me feel inadequate.
There are topics I don’t always want to discuss.
There are people I don’t listen to because they disagree with me and make me feel uncomfortable, uncertain of myself, unsafe about life.

And yet, I want to be brave.
In fact, I have to.

I want to break out of my own mind, my own circles, my own world.
I want to discuss, engage and invest, no matter if we agree or not. We might agree to disagree and yet remain friends.
I want to read and watch and listen to things that are beyond my own horizon.
I want to discover the great thoughts that are out there and surround myself with people who blow my mind.
That can be uncomfortable and challenging at times, but in the end it is the only way to a deeper knowledge, a greater wisdom, a richer life.

Writing for Five Minute Friday today.

You’ve Got to Let Go

Do you know these moments when you got it all planned out and then life takes a completely different turn?
Last Friday was such a moment for me. A long list of things to do, a full weekend ahead of me, a good couple of hours to finish it all. That was my plan for Friday.

I woke up with a headache and a feeling of nausea, so I gave myself an extra thirty minutes in bed. I had breakfast. I took a pill. I really took it slow.

No help.

In my mind I could almost hear the battle going on inside of me:
“I’ve got so much to do, this can’t be happening. Not today.”
“Maybe you just need to take some time to do nothing and just rest.”
“But when should I finish everything then? There are so many things on my list!”
“If you try to work while being sick, you won’t be happy with the results anyway.”

This went on for quite some time, until my eyes just closed and I fell asleep on the sofa.
I gave in to what my body clearly had tried to tell me.
Two hours later, I woke up refreshed and ready to go.

Life doesn’t always go as planned.
No matter how much we work and organize, things can always come in between, people can let us down, life can just get in the way.
Often times we can’t explain it, most of the time we definitely don’t deserve it.
We can just decide how we’ll react to these interruptions, no matter how big or small they may be.
Sometimes we need to let go and surrender to life’s plans.
Sometimes we have to trust that there’s someone there who sees and knows and will make it work – all in its right time.

Writing for Five Minute Friday today.

When Life Becomes Busy…

It’s been one of those weeks. You know, when you wake up at the end of those long days as if you’d just been on a rollercoaster ride and you wonder, what have I actually done this week?
Despite all my careful planning and my (normally) good organisational skills, I was buried knee deep in school work this week. So many papers to grade at the end of term, so many last minute events to organize, so many talks and meetings… and so little time to do all that.

In the last two weeks, I have spent more time at school than at home.
I haven’t really talked to anyone outside of school.
I don’t even want to talk about my eating habits. My kitchen is a big mess with leftover junk food, but I have no time nor energy to clean it up.

Maybe you’re familiar with such weeks and thoughts.

Time to pause is rare and self-care is not really at the top of our list these days.
How could we sit dow and rest when there’s a stack of work waiting for us?
Why should we put any effort in cooking something nice when we’re the only ones eating it and a sandwich would do just fine?

Because we deserve it.

In weeks like this I realize how much we have to fight for what’s important.
Inner strength and joy won’t just come, we have to be intentional and seek them out in our busy lives. When we value ourselves with what we do, eat and think, we can keep going and also appreciate the people around us.
When we carve out some time to just rest our thoughts and focus on the beauty in the mundane, we can see the abundance that’s already there.

So today, I decided to let work be work and exchange my desk for a sofa in a coffeeshop. With a giant cup of melange in my hand, I watch people, imagine the stories they have to tell and allow God to breathe life back into me.

Writing for Five Minute Friday today.

Let’s keep it simple.

Welcome to the new year everyone! Did you have a good time with family, friends and food? I hope so.

My New Year’s Eve plans were cancelled at the last minute and I had to find an alternative quickly. Somehow this event comes with so many expectations: the perfect location, the perfect food, the perfect conversations – the last night of the year has to be the best party ever.
The more I thought about it, the more stressed out I felt about it all. Why do we make such a big fuss about things sometimes?
We work and prepare and keep ourselves busy.
We worry what other people will think about our homes, clothes, friendships, life plans and decisions.
We try so hard to follow all the rules to please God and be good Christians. We bury ourselves in arguments and theologies, just so we know it all and deal with it all.

This Christmas was full of people. A blogger friend from the US and my little brother from South Africa came to visit me and we spent lots of nights talking.
About the joys and pain of life.
About what it means to deconstruct your faith and rediscover old truths.
About the simplicity of it all when we watch out for it.
We laughed and we cried together and I realized: this is what life and faith are about. Relationships. Simple. Complex. Challenging. Beautiful. Life-giving.

So if I have to say anything about this new year ahead of us: Let’s keep it simple.
Let’s be okay to not be perfect all the time.
Let’s leave the mess for a while and focus on the people around us instead.
Let’s never grow tired of sharing our time, our hearts, our lives.
Let’s continue to look out for God in the midst of all of this, right here in the mundane.

I ended up celebrating New Year’s Eve with a family I didn’t know that well yet and their two kids. A very small group of people, Raclette, stories, and watching the fireworks over the city from the balcony.
And it was perfect.

Writing for Five Minute Friday today. One prompt, five minutes to write and an awesome community of writers and cheerleaders. Why don’t you join us this year?

If you’re German-speaking and looking for a way to discover God in your mundane narratives, now might be a good time to start reading my book “Fliege ins Leben, lande bei Gott”. I would love to see you on this journey!

What If Christmas Was Different?

There I was in the middle of the Christmas market.
Lights were shining brightly around the square, from a distance I could hear some kids playing Christmas songs. As I took a deep breath I inhaled the smell of mulled wine, bratwurst and roasted nuts.

I had just come out of a department store where I had braved my way through crowded aisles and stressed out shoppers. Since Christmas is almost here, I couldn’t put it off any longer, I had to buy some presents eventually.

In case you didn’t know, I’m not the biggest fan of shopping. Especially around Christmas time. The shops are crowded, people are unnerved and everyone is stressed out. Christmas seems to be about brighter lights and bigger presents and more, more, more.

Let’s travel back in time.

There he was in the middle of a simple, cold barn. The savior of the world had just been born, a baby into completely unprepared surroundings.
Instead of a majestic palace he chose a stable.
Instead of sterile cleanliness, he came into dirt, simplicity and helplessness.
Instead of hundreds of visitors and big announcements, he invited the neglected shepherds to meet him first.

Sometimes I’d like to have been in that stable that night.
I imagine it to have been peaceful.
Quiet.
Hopeful.
Joyous.
Holy.

The message of Christmas is so very different from the distorted version we’re bombarded with all around us.
It’s about less than more.
It’s about unpreparedness than perfection.
It’s about peace than noise.
It’s about God coming to break through our illusions, expectations, hindrances.

What a gift this is.
May you enjoy it this Christmas.

One last Five Minute Friday this year. See you in 2018!