A priest's harem

The day I travelled down to Rochester dawned fresh and bright and full of the scents of spring. The sun shone, birds chirped and bunnies skipped through the fields, oblivious to the fact they would shortly be caught, covered in chocolate and stuffed into an egg for Easter. Yet, despite all these pleasantries, I was nervous.

Why?

Because we were about to cross the Canadian-USA border and there was a non-finite chance I might be detained and miss my flight back to Japan. In three weeks time. 

Since I had --upon consideration-- decided against renting a car on my slightly illegal Canadian driving license^[*] and using it to cross an international border, I was hitching a ride with a friend. She and I used to play on the same hockey team in Canada and we were visiting another ex-team mate who was a Baptist minister and had recently relocated to a church over the border. Really, you couldn't do better than our trip for shiny, wholesome fun. 

Knowing the USA border as I did, I suspected we would be detained for decades.

My friend was Canadian and in possession of a 'Nexus card'; an ID program that allows pre-approved, low-risk travellers to skip the queues at the Canadian-USA border. However, on this trip her vehicle was harbouring a British citizen who was working in Japan, visiting Canada and carrying a new passport which contained suspiciously little evidence of her sordid part. Low-risk we were not. We would have to go through the long way. 

"Where are you from?"

"Canada."

"UK."

And so the questions began. 

"What is the purpose for your trip?"

"We're visiting a friend," my friend explained. "He lives in Rochester."

"And what does he do?"

"He's a minister," my friend obediently expanded. "He's Canadian but working in the USA."

"And what sort of friend is he?"

OK, let's take a pause in our story to consider WHAT SORT OF QUESTION IS THAT? This guy has a car in front of him which contains two women of different nationalities, one from neither of the countries that this border straddles. The questions I was expecting concerned how I knew my chauffeur, how long I was going to be in North America and what I was doing here to begin with. His main concern seemed to be how did some religious dude get a job abroad and import an international harem of women for his guilty pleasures.

You believe I'm unfairly jumping the gun on the internal workings of this poor border guard? Let me continue….

"He's my boyfriend," my friend admitted after a slightly surprised pause.

The border guard leaned down and took another look at me. "What about her?"

WHAT ABOUT ME? The 'girlfriend' role is now taken. Did he expect me to admit I was the concubine? Sister wife? Imported bride? The girl they picked up on kijiji when advertising for a genuine 'Tarts and Vicars' weekend? I feel these should not have been the first 'go to' options here!

"She's …. a random friend," my friend volunteered.

…. well, I suppose 'random' beat 'imported concubine for an orgy'.

After that we were let through to collect the required visitor visa. I suspect the border guard went to fill in his application to theology college. 

--
[*] Technically, the license was in date, but showed my old Hamilton address, which meant lying about being a Canadian resident. It was also not possible to update said address without having a current national health card (OHIP). Go figure. 

Pigs are no fun!

Lake Avenue Baptist Church in Rochester, NY, prides itself on welcoming worshippers from all walks of life. This extends most particularly to its acceptance (and indeed performance) of gay marriage and its widely international congregation, a significant fraction of whom are not fluent English speakers. The diversity of the church members was celebrated at the beginning of the service where we exchanged a 'Good morning' with the paster in Mandarin (Zao Shang Hao), French (Bonjour), Burmese (Ming Gulava), Chin (Na Dam Ma), Spanish (Buenos Dias), Karen (Gaw Ler Gay), Kerenni (Teh Rya Beh Thee) and Nepalese (Namaste).

… And incase anyone like me was forced to reach for google after looking at that list, Karen and Kerenni are spoken by a group of people living in the south of Berma. Berma shares a border with China, Thailand, India, Laos and Bangladesh. It is not infeasible I had to also check that second fact. 

However, I couldn't help thinking --as I scanned the pews-- that this highly diverse greeting was wasted on the people around me who were predominantly white American. Was this a case of laying the table and hoping that the well known Kerenni speakers of northern New York state pour in? I'd noticed there were a lot of churches in Rochester, but this niche seemed a bit of a long shot. 

But by the time we were half an hour in, the demographic had changed; families with black hair, brown hair, blonde hair and red hair, of all different ages and tones of skin had filled out the pews. Ideas of punctuality (and perhaps the driving of the church bus) appeared to vary as vastly as language choice. In fact I was to later learn that this congregation was smaller than usual; daylight saving does nobody any favours but at least most of the absent had the excuse of language. Afterall, the idea there might be a Government backed mandate to STEAL AN HOUR OF YOUR LIFE in March is hard to anticipate.

… is that not how it works? Felt like it this morning.

With the pastor announcing three times that the adult education class on race and ethnicity would begin promptly at 11:30 that morning, one had to conclude start times were problematically open to interpretation. A fact that extended to the publication of the notice sheet which had the same class listed as 11:45 pm. 

Quite aside from that, may I say right now that Burmese children, with their Asian black hair and eyes and tanned skin, are frankly adorable? This sentiment was probably reinforced (if not created) by the fact they arrived late and then left shortly afterwards to go to Sunday School elsewhere in the church. Before they departed, the associate pastor led the 'Children's Worship' whose topic was the same as the main sermon; The Prodigal Son.

As the children confirmed, this parable is well known. A feckless whelp of a boy demands his inheritance from his father and disappears off to a life of partying (activity provided by the child audience; probably from one who was anticipating turning 4 years old real soon). Having spent all his cash in an irresponsible and stupid fashion, the son is forced to suck up his own mistakes and work on a pig farm for scraps of food he barely deserves.

and PIGS ARE NO FUN! (Helpful calibration point provided during the children's sermon incase anyone thought that did sound rather good)

Finally acknowledging that he was a idiotic twerp, the boy returns home to beg for work on his father's farm as a servant. Upon seeing the worthless spawn who had left him for dead for a life of debauchery, the father runs out to greet him, demands his servants hold a huge party (clearly knowing his son's perchance for such activities), dress him in robes and rings and kill the fatted calf. The older son who has experienced no such party life style is exceedingly pissed off and gets fobbed off by the promise of being able to inherit his father's hard working lifestyle when he dies. 

The pastor asked us all who we identified with more: the piggy scum of a prodigal son, the father or the older sibling. (Slight paraphrasing in progress.)

In case anyone was in any doubt based on my re-telling of this famous religious story, I SYMPATHISE WITH THE OLDER SIBLING.

Slapping it into the context of the day, Jesus told this story as a mirror to the attitude of the religious leaders who were angry that Jesus was hanging with the sinners of the town for dinner. 

Prior to this morning, I had never had much sympathy with those said religious bods. They seemed a stuffy bunch, more interested in bashing scrolls that actually applying any of the good that they preached. However, having thought the matter through carefully in right-hand side of the penultimate pew, I realised THEY HAVE EVERY REASON TO BE ANNOYED!

Let's take a step back and assess the situation: these people have dedicated their EVERY WAKING MINUTE to God. They have given up career plans of ballet dancing, Formula One racing and pimping for one of fasting, studying-without-macbooks and uncomfortable hair growth.

Then MIRACLE UPON MIRACLE! It all pays off! The promised Son of God appears not only in their lifetime, but right there in their town! 

Then he goes and hangs out with the scum who have just been making like Uncle Scrooge of Ducktails in his money bath. 

WOULDN'T YOU BE A TAD MIFFED?

TEAM OLDER SON. I'm getting a tee-shirt made up. 

Having thoroughly digested the sermon, I paused on my way out of the church to use the bathroom. Pinned on the wall of the cubicle was a notice that not only demonstrated the problems with a congregation with a language barrier but utilised a technique familiar with my own teaching in Japan: Use pictures. Keep the words few and simple. No. In. That goes for nappies and possibly religious messages. 

Keep calm and eat a teacup pig

 The problem with having a prolonged break from blogging is … how do you restart? Should you wait for an occasion SO MOMENTOUS that even an illiterate teacup pig would find a way to communicate it to the world:

 "I'VE JUST GIVEN BIRTH TO SEXTULPETS AND THE FATHER IS EITHER JUSTIN BIEBER, SHELDON COOPER OR THE RETIRED POPE'S GROOM OF THE STOOL!"

 (Just so we're clear that comment was entirely fictitious. Any resemblance to real events, occurring in any country, is purely coincidental.)

 Or should you just pick up from an entirely random point :

"WHEN I WALKED DOWN THE ROAD TO GET MILK, I SAW A CAR!!!"

(That comment was rather less fictitious and aren't you all glad I didn't decide to blog that?)

After a few false starts, I have picked a moment when I'm sitting in a gay and lesbian friendly coffee shop in Rochester, USA. Its name, 'Equal Grounds', is testament to their ideology, although they stress this just applies to people, not to coffees, since they have an extensive menu of drinks that includes their own blend. The artsy interior, huge flat screen fireplace and funky mugs for the almond steamer I ordered are enough to reinvigorate even the (blogging) dead. 

Back in Japan, the teaching year has finished (the undergraduate year runs April to mid-February) and marks the end of my first year as a faculty member! Frankly, that alone puts any talk of Justin Bieber's sextuplets in the shade. It should have resulted in the MOST GLITZY BLOG POST OF ALL TIME, but I confused my laptop with a teddybear and went to sleep. 

Teddybear laptops. That's where we were at, people. 

Then there came a new dawn and I  remembered my real job was a researcher. Whereupon, I promptly took off back to Canada to write up projects with my old institute that I'd been treating as the unmentionable Frankenstein monster of an unloved bastard teacup pig for the last 12 months. 

Then I crossed the border and found a coffee shop.

Hi.

New year, old romance

My flight from London had touched down in Detroit at 11:45am EST. It was now past 2pm and I had spent the last two hours of this fresh new year standing in the line before American border control.

For me, the standard question of "Why do you want to visit the United States of America?" had the simple -- if slightly obnoxious -- answer of "I don't." My intention was to take a connecting flight to Buffalo, collect my car and scoot over the border back to Canada. Because of this audacious plan, I had struggled with my customs form which demanded to know the full street address of where you would be staying while in the USA. After a moments consideration, I had scrawled 'Canada' in that box with the idea that this was either an issue they dealt with frequently, or they just wouldn't notice that Canada wasn't part of America. Of course, this did require me making my connecting flight. The 3.5 hour layover was starting to look woefully inadequate.

As I looked down the snake-like line of people waiting with me, I realized I was probably sharing these dilemmas with a sizable fraction of the room. American security demands that incoming international flights go through US customs, even if you are simply connecting through the airport to leave the country directly again.

I idled away the time imagining all the irritating answers I'd like to give to the humorless border control guards if I had less sense and a taste for prison food, and watched while a couple of students were carted away for forgetting their I-20 work permits.

Finally, after another 20 minutes of waiting, I was third from the front of the queue. Another student was taken away, probably to be sent to the modern equivalent of hard labor in Detroit's failing automobile industry. Second in line...

Due to a nation-wide error, we are have a problem with our computers and cannot process passengers at this time.

I raised my head slowly to look up at the intercom that just broadcast this announcement. It appeared the USA border control and I would be starting 2011 as we undoubtedly intended to continue.