Open

by Chris Pipkin

In the shopping district of Dresden, Germany, I spotted a Communist. He wasn’t too hard to identify. Maybe it was his resemblance to Karl Marx, or his apparent goodwill toward his fellow-man that marked him out. Or perhaps it was the large red hammer-and-sickle flag that he was holding as he passed out communist literature. Hard to say. His presence surprised me, partly because you don’t see many starry-eyed Marxists in Eastern Europe (not for about the last half-century), and if you do, they’re not usually holding the Soviet flag. I decided I had to talk to this man.

When you’re a foreigner, it’s always a bit of a relief to meet people who seem to blend in even less than you do. I had a friend with me who spoke German, and I suggested that we talk to the man with the flag. He proved an easy enough man to get an audience with.





My friend asked the gentleman, in German, why he was standing around with a Communist flag there in the middle of the commercial district. His answer surprised me, and even I could understand it: “Weil Jesus liebt mich”—That is, “Because Jesus loves me.”

I see. I began to suspect the authenticity of this man’s Communism.

My friend tried to ask why he would say that when he is a Communist. Does he believe in God? He assured her that he didn’t believe in God...but he insisted that Jesus loves him anyway. My friend tried pursuing the subject further, but his logic was, apparently, quite beyond our own. We realized at a later point that the man had probably brought up Jesus because my friend was wearing a pin with a small picture of Viggo Mortensen, whom the man had apparently mistaken for Jesus.

He handed us information, however--a few booklets, a few discs. One he pressed into my hands saying, “DVD,” very proudly. We thanked him (he was very nice), and began to leave with the propaganda. The man stopped us, very politely, and, pointing to each item again, said, “Five Euros. Two Euros. Three Euros.”

I told my friend to tell the man that I didn’t think he was much of a Communist. Not exactly doing the old regime proud. In fact, under the system that he was (albeit hypocritically) proclaiming, he probably would have been locked up very quickly. As a weirdo, if nothing else. We took leave of him, smiling, me wishing that I could have talked to him sans the language barrier. It probably wouldn’t have made a difference. Some people are so open that they’re very, very closed.


Journal Entry, 6/10/2008

About two weeks ago, the French kids moved out and I got new flatmates who keep early hours (like me!) and who I don’t feel at all uptight around. There is no sense of dread as I come upstairs to Flat #7, no crowd of students making noise at midnight—just a guy from California (the most normal Californian I’ve ever met) and a girl from Moscow. They both work, like me, and I can talk to the Californian in normal, non-slowed-down English...

The three of us were talking at the kitchen table maybe a week ago, and I was rehearsing to Victoria (the Russian) my very limited knowledge of the literature of her country (she was quite gratified—“Russia has best literature in world...”). She then began to talk about how now that she’s studying she has very little time to read for fun, but she makes a point to continue reading “about energy.” She explained to us then that life is all about energy, and everyone gets good and bad energy from space, and how her goal in life is to rid herself of bad energy and acquire the good kind.

I become uncomfortable when people talk about such things, not because they threaten or frighten me at all, but because my faith (and honesty) obliges me to disagree. The postmodern maxim, “That’s great for you; so glad it’s working in your case,” just can’t be uttered, even if I'm interested. And yet here she was, sharing something personal and important with us, taking the risk of our judging her. I wanted to be interested, not just act interested. So I asked questions.

“Is that kind of energy linked at all to energy having to do with how tired someone is, for example?” She said it was, but the cosmic variety of energy is more important than the kind you get from food. I remarked that on some days I felt I had a lot more “positive” energy than others, noting that this seemed to me inconsistent with the idea of steady karma-esque losses or gains of energy. She said, “You know, I could tell that about you from the time we met—that you are negative and positive, up and down. I can tell things about people sometimes.”

It wasn’t what she said that tipped me off that there was something real at work here (I mean, who isn’t negative and positive?); more the way in which it was said. I began to speak in tongues behind my teeth and under my breath, feeling not-so-weird for doing so. She may have sounded wacky, but she was talking about a world we both knew, to an extent, and (with some enjoyment, I’ll admit), I felt the two-dimensional agnostic atmosphere of Prague and the West suddenly acquire that old sense of spiritual depth.

“I can tell,” she went on, “that some places have very good energy, while Vaclav (Wenceslas) Square, for example, has very bad energy.” I knew exactly what she was talking about, and I agreed with her, though I was worried for Andrew, who was probably thinking that both of his new flatmates were insane. I was thinking, with a tiny bit of alarm (only enough to wake me up), “Oookay. I’m living with a Russian white witch.”

“I try sometimes to take from people the bad energy, for example when they get sick or headache. I’m very interested in learning to do this by putting my hands on them.”

Wait a minute.

“I put my hands on my friend once when she had stomach ache, and I took bad energy away, and she felt better—but then I had stomach ache!”

Okay. There it was. I had to say something now. It wasn’t fair that she was telling us everything about her beliefs, risking being seen as crazy, and I, who had Good Reason to say what I believed, remained quiet. The lines were scripted out for me. I held my breath and dove in.

“I’ve seen really similar things happen,” I said, getting up to go to the sink and trying, trying, uncomfortably trying not to preach, “but it was more of a religious kind of thing.”

“Yeah, like faith-healing?” chimed in Andrew. “I’ve seen some of that stuff myself.”

“Kind of,” I said. “I’ve put my hands on people with headaches, stomach aches, other things, and seen the negative energy come out, seen them get better, but I take the negative energy, and I put it on Christ. He takes it.”

She wasn’t sure how to respond. Shoot. But Andrew said, “Yeah, I grew up Presbyterian. That was well-put.”

We haven’t really talked since then, about that stuff. I wish she’d been comfortable to go on talking about her beliefs. I would have listened, but I couldn’t be open to it, even if I was open to her. I know that sounds cheap. Maybe that was all she had to say, anyway, or maybe my mentioning Christ made her uncomfortable. Maybe she didn’t want to be “impolite” and say that she disagreed with me. In the end, though, it is better to say something.


The Following is a Googlemail chat from June 5

me: I had an interesting debate about abortion with one of my students today.
That was crazy.

T: oh really?
what was she saying?
6:17 PM she is probably FOR it

me: Of course. This is Europe, after all. I asked them to write a paper on a controversial topic, and she picked that one.
And I was trying to be all neutral, because, you know, I'm the teacher.
I'm there to teach English.

T: :/

6:18 PM me: But then, going around to get them to talk, I was asking what they thought.
And after that, she asked me, "Well, what do you think?"
And I was like, "Shoot. The game is up."
So I just kind of outlined my position as tactfully as I could, trying not to get too heated.

6:19 PM T: and what did they say?

me: Oh, we all kept calm. I could have taken her in debate easily, but it wouldn't have been fair, because I'm the teacher.

T: fair

6:20 PM me: And I speak better English, and I'm not there to talk, they are.
But I outlined some of the basic pro-life stances, and she outlined some of the basic pro-choice stances, and the other two students kept pretty quiet.

6:21 PM T: So how do you feel about the discussion now?

6:22 PM me: I felt like it was fine. I think sometimes the argument itself might not matter as much as the fact that people are willing to say what they believe. So that no one has the idea that it's a bunch of idiots taking this view.

6:23 PM I said, basically, that it comes down to the question of "is this a human life or isn't it"?

T: hm

that is great

me: And if it is, then the government has the responsibility to protect it.

6:25 PM T: sometimes, it is in situations like that that people start thinking deeper about the issues we are all thinking about

6:26 PM me: Yeah. I could have gone into so many arguments, but it honestly would have just upset her, and been other than what I was supposed to be doing as a teacher.

T: that also usually leads to some beautiful conclusions about God

6:27 PM me: We were able to carry out the discussion in friendliness, despite the tension.
So that was good. Sometimes maybe you have to leave room in your arguments for people to think for themselves. That's the challenging thing.
I need to read more Plato.

T: it is

me: Or to read him at all.

T: :)

6:28 PM i miss all those guys

6:29 PM me: Arguments should be places in which I can understand my own position more fully. Should be.
And of course the other person's.

T: yeah

me: At least for the most part.

6:30 PM T: yeah
I like talking about things like that with people that are open about other people's opinions about the given issue
6:31 PM i recently talked with my other roommate about the end times
and she got SO angry with me

me: I wish I was more that way. I just get emotionally agitated because I'm so relational.
I mean, more open.
Why did she get angry?

6:32 PM T: well, she was upset
6:33 PM that i was saying things that she got very personal about
she got very emotional and all
and that was NOT my intention at all
and i thought "oh, crap"
6:34 PM but then we talked and everything was alright
i like asking questions
and i like when people ask questions

me: Good for you.

T: and so together we try to find answers
not i am right and you are wrong

6:36 PM me: Yeah. It's really hard, because at the same time I know that there IS right and wrong...but not to identify myself with the right. Not exclusively. But to still be honest.
To believe in the possibility of Truth.
The reality of truth.

T: yes!

6:37 PM me: And the attainability of truth.
But not the ownership of truth, maybe.

T: and trying to get away from all the subjectivism, which is really a challenge, sometimes

6:38 PM me: Tell me about it.
Hard lines to walk