My Four "R's"

My goal at the beginning of this little adventure was to live one great story, and I have to say I’m a tad bit disappointed. Most of what I lived was just awkward situations that could be spun for a couple of cheap laughs. Don’t get me wrong; I’ve enjoyed every single minute of my time down here immensely. My dream was to do something important. I wanted to do something that would leave an impact on the people I met down here. I wanted, as corny as it sounds, to make a difference. Although I may not have done anything worth writing down, my experience did change me. I regained an appreciation for things that had once been important to me. These four things had slowly dissipated over the years until they were completely lost. These are my four R’s.

A major passion that was reignited during my time here in Brazil was reading. While endeavoring to live out a great story I couldn’t help but return to some of the classics that have inspired people for generations. One belief of mine that I believe was instilled in me by my father was a love of story. I’ve always loved to read. I think it was originally a way to stay up late. When a parent walks in and finds you reading at two in the morning what can they do? Ground you from reading? Eventually it became more than an excuse to stay up late. The characters, particularly in the classics, engrossed me especially the characters that faced insurmountable obstacles and trudged on. I can’t help but quote one of the greatest monologues in film history by a Mr. Samwise Gamgee after Frodo gives up hope.

Frodo: I can't do this, Sam.

Sam: I know. It's all wrong. By rights we shouldn't even be here. But we are. It's like in the great stories, Mr. Frodo. The ones that really mattered. Full of darkness and danger, they were. And sometimes you didn't want to know the end. Because how could the end be happy? How could the world go back to the way it was when so much bad had happened? But in the end, it's only a passing thing, this shadow. Even darkness must pass. A new day will come. And when the sun shines it will shine out the clearer. Those were the stories that stayed with you. That meant something, even if you were too small to understand why. But I think, Mr. Frodo, I do understand. I know now. Folk in those stories had lots of chances of turning back, only they didn't. They kept going. Because they were holding on to something.

Frodo: What are we holding onto, Sam?

Sam: That there's some good in this world, Mr. Frodo... and it's worth fighting for.

I am completely aware that it doesn’t get much cornier, but it’s characters like these that inspire. Reading constantly reintroduces attributes that are impossible to come by, but everyone desires. These attributes are necessary for someone to live a story worth retelling after they’re gone. So this is why I read. It’s a vision of what a great story could look like.

I used to run for the sole purpose of being in shape to play sports. Eventually it became something else. In all honesty it hast to become something else if you want to continue running after sports are done with. In Brazil I didn’t have much to do. Your options become limited when you don’t know the city and you don’t have a car. So I ran. I’d stopped running for sometime, but, with nothing else to do, I started back up here in Brazil. I’d forgotten how it felt. I started off running around three miles a day. It soon evolved into six to ten miles a day. I had no motive. I honestly don’t care about what I look like with my shirt off (Although it’s an added bonus let’s not kid ourselves). There is a new motivation for running. Deep down it was the reason I enjoyed the longer distances more than the short sprints in high school. Well that and the fact that I’m impossibly slow. Distance running is a different animal than sprints. In every distance race there comes a point when the runner is forced to make a decision. He hits the wall. His legs ache and his lungs are on fire. He smashes into a brick wall and has to choose whether to stop or not. For some reason, I’m betting on my dad, I love that moment in the run. My dad’s always said, “A man loves the grind.” In all honesty I do. I love the moment when I get to decide whether or not I can go on. So far I’ve never hit the point where I couldn’t convince myself to keep going. Running is a poetic metaphor for life I believe. Maybe that’s just too much time stuck inside my own head talking. I suppose there comes a time when things just look hopeless and the decision is yours. When stuff kicks your teeth in do you get up or stay down? I guess, for me, running is a daily reminder that characters worth their salt always get up.

I picked up writing again as well. I’m well aware this word doesn’t begin with the an ‘r’ but it’s got the sound. I’ve always loved to write, mostly short stories and beginnings of novels that will never be finished. No, these will never be able to be viewed by the public. I write as a means of expression not for people to see. I haven’t been just writing a blog here in Brazil either. Writing for me is a way to imagine a character that I want to be. I don’t mean physical attributes obviously. I mean those attributes that make a character who he is. The struggles he’s faced and persevered through. The triumphs he’s had and the failures that made him who he is. For me writing is a way to imagine where I want to be and then strive forward to be that character. Writing is a form of what is known as self-prophecy. Thank you fundamentals of communication. Yes mom and dad that’s what my college fund is going towards. Donald Miller put’s it best in his new book A Million Miles in a Thousand Years. His contention is that the characteristics of people in the stories that we love to read are applicable in reality as well as in story.

The last ‘r’ is reuniting. I couldn’t think of a better word that begins with an ‘r’ for daily devotionals and the title wouldn’t work if it was three ‘r’s and a ‘d’. While viewing life with the lenses of attempting to live a great story I applied it to just about everything I saw. That includes while I was reading the Bible. One of my favorite preachers put it best when he said something to the effect of the Bible is not a road map for your life, but rather a great story about the glory of God. Reading the Bible like a story rather than a textbook reignited a passion for studying it that used to be there but burned out shortly after church camp. The Bible isn’t a good road map to life, but as far as revealing the glory of God through His ability to use what is wicked and wretched for the good of those who trust him is a fascinating read. No one likes to read a list of rules. Who doesn’t enjoy and epic tale? Reading the Bible like a story revealed just how outlandishly fantastic some of the things inside are.

So no, I didn’t do anything that dropped jaws. I didn’t jump in front of a bus saving a complete strangers life. I didn’t march into the Amazon and convert a nation of indigenous people. I didn’t stand in the streets of Campo Grande preaching in a different tongue and converting hundreds of people at once. When I leave here people might miss me for my charms, the laughs we had, or just the crazy American kid who taught us poker that one time. Most of them will forget my name by the next year, but I regained some essential parts of my life that I once life so I can’t say the trip wasn’t a success. In fact it might be more of a success than I had originally planned. I didn’t make a real difference in the lives of these people, but I suppose regretting that is the first step in doing something about it. I’m nineteen years old. I’ve got the rest of my life to do something worth mentioning in the future, but one thing this trip has taught me is that stories don’t just fall into your lap. They tease you from the other side of a large gap. Stories don’t come easy. Sometimes you have to jump for it and hope it turns out well. In the immortal words of my friend Chad, which I’m sure came from somewhere that I’m just not familiar with, “You gotta risk it to get the biscuit.” Maybe I didn’t doing anything spectacular, but if I’ve gained anything from this trip it was a bit of courage to go for it the next time an opportunity comes around. This may be my last post from Brazil, but here’s to hoping something will happen in the future that will be worth writing down. The blog will continue because I enjoy writing it and it’s an incentive to live deliberately. I’ll leave Brazil with this quote from Mark Twain, “Let us endeavor to live so that when we come to die even the undertaker will be sorry.”

Of Chips and Millstones

Most people thought that my purpose here in Brazil was to help with the church. Some, like myself, thought that I came here to learn Portuguese, experience a different culture, and observe people from a different church background. As it turns out my only purpose here so far has been to corrupt the young people of the church in Campo Grande. I last week I received a call from one of my friends here in Brazil. He wanted to know if I wanted to play a game. I had no plans so I jumped at the chance to get out into the city. I asked, “ What kind of game.”

He replied, “Ogre.”

Now I had no idea what ogre was so, being an avid Sherlock Holmes fan (both the literary and the cinematic versions), I attempted to deduce what ogre could possibly be. I didn’t have many clues. It was around eight in the evening, already dark, and rather cold. Campo Grande, Brazil, gets one week of legitimate winter weather a year. I happen to be here during that week. When I say cold I mean it hit thirty-two degrees that night. The day before it was sunny and eighty. I don’t have any warm clothes. Through an intense session of concentration and reasoning I’d narrowed it down to a game that took place inside. I realize this wasn’t an impressive conclusion, but I’m not Sherlock Holmes. My friend arrived and we drove to his house to meet up with four young people from the church. We cleared the table in preparation for ogre. As my friend put two decks of cards and some poker chips in place of the plates he asked me, “Do you know how to play ogre?”

“You mean poker?”

“Ah, yes, poker!”

“Of course I know how to play poker?”

“Can you teach us?”

I’m still not sure what they would’ve done had I not been there because none of them actually knew anything about poker. Anyways, I began to teach these five, naive, innocent people the art of gambling in Portuguese. I realize speaking in Portuguese doesn’t justify the fact that I corrupted five people simultaneously, but it has to be better than corrupting people in English. I explained the different hands, which were better, and other things pertaining to the game. They asked if we were playing for money to which I promptly replied, “Absolutely not, I’ve done enough damage as it is.”

To make things worse the house we were playing at is used as a church on Sundays. The owner is the preacher. He walked and, upon seeing what was taking place said, “The church has been turned into a den of robbers.” He was laughing when he said it, but I got the feeling he was about to go braid himself a whip. That joke was for all my fellow bible nerds. The Brazilian people are incredibly kind until you get them behind the wheel of a car or playing soccer. It turns out it is the same with poker. They were vicious. I dealt the entire time and didn’t play. It would’ve been hilarious had my soul not been in peril.

After a couple hours of poker they wanted to play porco, which means pig in Portuguese. It’s a lot like spoons except when you lose one letter of the word porco is written on your arm. Once the word is entirely written you have to crawl on all fours and oink. I told them we played it with knives instead of spoons in the states, which was a lie, but they believed it and think we are all insane. Then I told them a story about how my entire family played a game of spoons. There were around thirty of us and I specifically remember my grandmother, Rita, wrestling on of my cousins for the last spoon. You better believe grandma wiped the floor with him. That was a true story, but the Brazilians didn’t believe it. Apparently playing a game with knives that would leave you fingerless is more believable than true stories about my family.

The night ended well past midnight and we all prepared to go home. As I was leaving they all thanked me for teaching them how to play poker. I was reminded of a verse found in Matthew 18:6. It says, “But if anyone causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to have a large millstone hung around his neck and to be drowned in the depths of the sea.” At least we didn’t play for money right? Well as I was getting into the car that was going to take be back to Zanatta’s house they asked if I knew how to play billiards. That millstone started to get heavy.

We Laughed We cried, Vai Brasil Vai

Last Monday Brazil had its second round World Cup game against Chile. For those of you ignorant people who know nothing about the World Cup the second round is a win or go home situation or in Brazil’s case win or never reenter the country unless you have a death wish. Well Zanatta gave me two choices. I could go watch the game in a tranquil environment with him and his nephew at his nephew’s house, or I could watch the game at the Cidade do Cupo (City of the Cup). Well obviously I didn’t have much of a choice. I had to go to the Cidade do Cupo. It is a patch of field by a busy highway with street vendors, live bands, and two massive televisions for watching the game. I’ve been lucky enough to attend a few professional sporting events in my lifetime. I’ve seen football games, basketball games, and even a baseball game all at the professional level. Not a single one of them even comes close to the tension and excitement of the people at the Cidade do Cupo, and this was before the game even started. Just to give you an idea, the Brazilian presidential election is going down four months after the World Cup finishes. I’ve been watching the news to practice listening to Portuguese. I only found out because my teacher told me. There hasn’t been a single story on the presidential election, but I’ve seen several stories on what Kaka is doing at the present moment in South Africa and how Brazil measures up against the Netherlands. Legitimately, if you were to ask someone in Brazil who is running for president in a few months they would have no idea, but they could tell you what minute Kaka scored in the game before Chile. Trick question, they tied Portugal nil-nil. The World Cup absolutely engulfs every facet of a Brazilian’s life. It affects the economy, politics, and the morale of the entire country. My teacher said if Brazil doesn’t win the suicide rate goes up. I don’t think he was kidding. Well this is the environment I was thrust into during their last game against Chile. It was very crowded. I stood for two hours watching the game without being able to move. Brazil scored their first goal and some dude hugged me. I have no earthly idea who he was. I told him he needed to by me dinner first. He just stared. After that two other people punched me in the arm. I thought we were about to throw down, but apparently that’s just some form of good luck charm because it happened every time Brazil scored. As Brazil continued to advance, I moved closer to some ladies to see if I could celebrate the next goal with them. That last statement was purely fictional and was meant to only be humorous. That one goes out to you mom. Anyways, I continued to be hugged, punched, and slapped on the back by random strangers with tears in their eyes. One of the two people I came with showed me his arm after the second goal. He had goose bumps. Now I love the game of soccer, but seriously? Goose bumps? After an hour and a half of some impressive soccer the game ended with Brazil winning three to nothing over Chile. The fireworks didn’t stop until around three in the morning. The game ended at four in the afternoon. I went running today and somebody rolled down their window and shouted, “Brasil!!!” The game was three days ago. By the way while I was running I passed a woman power walking with a cigarette in her mouth. I told her, “ My dear that’s the definition of counterintuitive.” She stared just like the guy who still owes me dinner. They just don’t get me here in Brazil. Anyways, the sanity of the people here in Brazil hangs on the shoulders of twenty-three young men in South Africa. You know, if we told our players if they didn’t win we’d kill them we would be good too. For those of you who may never get to experience the insanity that is Brazilian soccer fans go to any professional sporting event and imagine that instead of the thousands of people shouting at touchdown the entire United States of America is shouting at the same time and you might have a fraction of what Brazilian fans are like. To sum up my time in the Cidade do Cupo, we laughed, we cried, and we shouted; Vai Brazil Vai!