CURRENT MISSION

to abide

ABOUT ME

Quiet and reserved but warm and hospitable.

PHILOSOPHY

"The word of God is not up in Heaven that you must send someone to ascend to Heaven and retrieve it, nor is it across the sea that someone must go to a foreign land to find it. No, it is very near to you: it is written on your hearts and tongues, all you must do is speak it and love it,"

so says Moses, according to my paraphrasing, in Deuteronomy 30.

Why I’m on Couchsurfing

HOW I PARTICIPATE IN COUCHSURFING

I registered an account years ago-- this is the extent of my participation as yet.

COUCHSURFING EXPERIENCE

none yet

Interests

I am happy to be with my close friends. I have the hobbies of an unrepentant dilettante-- a little drawing, a little cooking, a little gardening, biking, reading and writing, camping and hiking and backpacking, chess and hearts and dominoes. I like to pray and sing to God, by myself or with others, but I am a dilettante there as well.

• writing
• singing
• cooking
• gardening
• chess
• reading
• drawing
• piano
• cycling
• hiking
• backpacking
• camping

Music, Movies, and Books

If the movie is in a movie theater, I am undiscriminating. I love watching movies in theaters. Outside of a theater, I like my movies to have something to chew on, and not too fast-paced.

I listen to music less and less these days, but I still play and improvise on the piano. I used to listen to the whole classical canon from Leonin to Ligeti. But these days I do love it all.

I've had my phases with books-- Southern fiction, Russian fiction, modernist fiction; the Americans: Emerson, Whitman, Melville; Homer, Richard Brautigan; haiku, the British metaphysical poets, Sufi poets; Christian writing from Origen to Ephrem to Hopkins... these days I like it all.

One Amazing Thing I’ve Done

Biking the Columbia River Gorge out near the tri-cities, out in the high desert; or reaching the summit of Sawtooth Peak at Mineral King in the Sierras, these outdoorsy feats both gave me moments of great peaceful disturbing solitude.

Feeling lovesickness for the first time is certainly a landmark in my life.

Teach, Learn, Share

Mostly I have taught others in the long-term-- like Greek tutoring, or piano lessons. I don't know what I might teach in the course of a day or two.

Countries I’ve Visited

Austria, Canada, Czech Republic, France, Germany, Mexico, United Kingdom

Countries I’ve Lived In

United States