an open space

october 17

Possible website design for aswwu? we're going to imbed a slideshow on the whiteboard on the main picture on the left, so imagine the picture of Tommy changing slides and so on. I wish I had put a projector on the table that looked like it was shining on the board, but I didn't think about that til' now cuz I'm lame. I wanted it to look really clean. Tyler Ray took the small b&w pictures I used for the right table content. Uh, but I think we're hiring Eric Ashley to do all that. Input? Do you think the 1st or the 2nd is a better index page? (Brian!?)

ps. I'm glad I NEVER even know what I'm doing. Bah!





I could so easily fall in love with Aaron Weiss. I love to read his old tour journals.

More Travels, Alleluia
Yesterday, my friend Brian and I wake up in Vilnius, Lithuania after a few days of being taken very good care of by complete strangers - a bed of our own in a soviet flat, cooking sour kraut in a tincan at a bonfire singalong at night, building a makeshift sauna from scrapwood and plastic, playing homemade percussion instruments with a folk band outside a woodcarvers shop, mass on sunday, picnic by the river, another warm bed (with some critters to keep us company), tea everywhere we go - we headed out for the hill of crosses just outside Siauliai, a pilgrimage site and place of holy, peaceful resistance to soviet oppression, took us about 6 hours and three rides, the hitchhiking has been much better here than what I’m accustomed to, thanks be to God.

This hill of crosses, I thought while I was walking through it, might be the most beautiful thing human beings have ever done. Pope John Paull II had a Fransiscan monastery built right near it 7 years ago and we spent the night there and had breakfast with the monks, there are 5 of them that live there, and they were kind and gentle and seemed happy. We went out to the hill but it was raining pretty hard so stayed mostly under a nearby gazebo until the 11:00 mass, the monks smiled at each other sweetly during the service which took part in as best we could not understanding any words except alleluia, which I’m starting to think anyhow is about the only word worth knowing.

After that we set out again on the road, more rain, wet everywhere but walked along the highway the two of us wrapped in a tarp we found, fumbling together like a halloween horse, four rides (one from a school bus) took us to Riga, Latvia by this afternoon and a friendly greeting a few hours later, some very nice people we’d contacted earlier from a group called “youth with a mission”. Again we have an inside place to sleep, and it’s dry and we can dry our socks. Oh, you reading this, I assume indoors, lets not take it for granted. Right? Someone built this house I’m in and you’re in, a lot of work’s gone into keeping us warm and dry. I often think of Jesus’ words,

“Others have done the hard work, and you have reaped the benefits of their labor.”

I’m ashamed of this, but for better or worse, but the very least we can be is grateful - ah, that one word, why did I write all this, why didn’t I just write that one word?

alleluia!
{aaron weiss}