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| The International Movement for the Art of Life |
Biographical details
For more than 20 years I have been developing as a psychologist a Christian Psychology in theory and practice. I have done this as a staff member of the IGNIS-Institute for Christian Psychology in Germany and as a part of boards of some institutions in other countries.
I have to teach, to prepare new topics and to initiate new projects. My last mandate in counselling till 2003 was for foster families and families with adopted children.
In 2001 I entered the area of art in writing poems. I like to build creative teams with other creative persons.
Born 1949, married to Agnes for more than 35 years, I enjoy meeting my six children and their families.
I am an autodidact
Life has tipped a pile of words
in front of my feet.
Head first I jumped in
And learned alone with red head
not to get drowned.
Now I spit out
the swallowed letters
with big eyes
behind protecting hands.
As little mirrors
they are falling into sunshine.
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| Making Breakfast |
September 2008 (Project 01) |
In my introduction to the philosophy of The Art of Life I wrote that every moment and every personal experience can become the subject of The Art of Life. Then why not simply the preparation of breakfast? Agnes, my wife, and I take turns at getting up first and thus preparing breakfast. We have been sharing our duties like this for years, one enjoying staying in bed a bit longer and the other serving by this task.
Decades ago, when breakfast risked getting lost in the confusion of our small children, we decided to get up earlier to have time for each other at breakfast. We retained this habit, even today with the kids grown up and living somewhere else. In this way, we have every day at least 45 minutes together at the breakfast table, a time we wouldn’t want to miss.
There are different breakfast traditions depending on each culture. One wise German saying is
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Have breakfast like a king, lunch like a nobleman and dinner like a beggar-child”. |
As it has already become pretty cold in the middle of September this year, we started having breakfast in our kitchen a few days ago because it is more easily heated. In principle, what we eat and drink for breakfast is fixed, particularly on the weekdays: tea, cold cuts, cheese, jam, fruits, brown bread, muesli for Agnes. Every day I marvel at this variety, naturally in small amounts, for only two people…
When I was just about to start the preparations today, I had the idea that his could become an Art-of-Life-project and I quickly recalled some of the Keys of Art (see philosophy). My report is not supposed to give a complete record but rather a summary of my observations with the Art-of-Life-glasses |
Preparing tea
The first act when preparing breakfast, also today, is the preparation of the tea. I fill-up the electric kettle. Water drops run down the kettle again. Putting it onto the electric part, I am glad that I can do this without worries. Our previous electric kettle blew the fuse every now and then as water and electricity somehow got in contact. I am happy that we have this new one, generally, that electric kettles exist. Other ways of heating water seem extremely complicated to me nowadays. These thoughts always occur to me when using the kettle.
Then I get the teapot that was, as I can’t forget, a special gift, first that we found it and secondly that it was actually given to us as a present by the shop. We had been using a dark blue teapot we really liked for years but the catch was that the spout dripped. All the tools, e.g. drip-catchers did not really produce relief. For this reason, we had been looking for years for a non-dripping pot but no manufacturer wanted to guarantee that the pot wouldn’t drip (at least not in our price level).
As a speaker on a weekend seminar 1-2 years ago, I spotted a glass pot with an original design during breakfast with the host family and could even see for myself that it worked without dripping. I was overjoyed and asked where they got it from. To my surprise the owner of the respective kitchen shop was even participating in my seminar. Though the price was at my upper limit, I immediately reached for the telephone in order to ask whether he could bring a pot which he promised to do. The last piece in stock. And then they handed me the pot in the beginning of the seminar, as a present. I didn’t have to pay anything. An unforgettable story, present every day. It is a nice pot that allows observing the tealeaves after the infusion and later the light reflecting in the liquid. |
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I am astonished how much personal history appears to me every day when preparing or drinking tea. Germany was once considered rather as a country of coffee drinkers. 30 years ago we consciously changed to drinking tea at breakfast, were almost on a trip of tea cult at that time. |
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The jam
The tea was now infused. I am amazed how many things can cross one’s mind in a few minutes.
I remember that there was no jam on the table yesterday for it was finished. Thus I hurry to the cellar to get a new glass. We still have a sufficient stock of homemade jam from Agnes’ mother. Every time I get a glass I think to myself that this tradition will die out slowly. Agnes also masters this craft – when there are sufficient plums in the garden she makes jam as well. Will our children do this one day? The jam became for me a symbol of disappearing old times: glass jars often re-used, hand-written labels, natural jam from fruits from our own garden we don’t have any time left for. I choose the currant jam. I open the glass in the kitchen to check if mould accumulated. No, the jam shines towards me. I remember that a few years ago the homemade jam often moulded until somebody told Agnes the trick how to avoid mould that resulted. Our grandmother however swore by the way she had always done it.
I put the jam inside the jam basket next to the honey and the Nutella and shake my head looking at the big glass of Nutella as neither Agnes nor I use it. The glass seems to be waiting for the occasional visit of the grown children like in their childhood. |
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Cutting bread
Having the plates, cups, and knifes arranged, I get cold cuts, cheese, milk, curd from the fridge and start cutting the bread.
I learned from my trips and from two of our children living in the Netherlands that brown rye bread is typically German – the first demand of our children is that we bring some bread. I also love French white bread and other types of bread but brown bread has the most intense taste for me. With a fresh crispy crust a delicacy. Almost every time I start thinking of my childhood at the farm of my grandparents where fresh big loafs of bread were baked every 2-3 weeks in the oven behind the barn. Cutting this freshly baked loaf was my grandfather’s responsibility who celebrated it. The crispy end parts were much sought-after.
A few years ago we put the bread cutter away after we had been invited to a dinner where the host himself ceremonially cut the bread with a big knife at the table.
Since then, I take the long bread knife and cut the slices on a wooden board that turn out unequally thick and neat. That’s what makes them beautiful. Then I put them almost caressingly in a wooden bread bowl. |
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Rolling shutters
It’s almost done. I go to the window to open the rolling shutter. I always wanted old folding shutters for they seem so romantic with red and green colours and embellish the house from the outside. But today I am glad that I don’t have to open the windows. It is easier.
Unbelievable all the things men invented, I think once again. There are probably so many different ways how the windows are closed at night in the different countries, if this happens at all. (In the Netherlands, I am surprised every time that even the windows to the street do not have any curtains and everybody can look inside. The reformatory tradition that a Christian doesn’t have to hide anything might lie behind it.) The window of our kitchen faces north. Therefore, there is no sun in the morning but a few sunbeams appear in the grass and in the trees in front.On a Sunday e.g. I would maybe quickly go to the garden to get a few roses as decoration for the table but I decide that this would be exaggerated today on a workday. The combination of the food and the dishes already create a colourful picture. |
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Teapot warmer
I remove the device with the tealeaves from the teapot. The last thing I have to do is to light the teapot warmer and breakfast is ready.
I am always a bit irritated when using matches for this. Until 1983 a monopoly for matches was in force in the Federal Republic of Germany. Here more regarding this from wikipedia: |
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“The match monopoly in Germany dates from the match monopoly law enacted by the Reichstag in 1930. Due to this law, matches could only be distributed in the German Reich and subsequently in the Federal Republic of Germany by the German Society of the match monopoly. The brand names were Welthölzer (world matches) and Haushaltsware (household article). Production quotas were allocated to the German manufacturers when the monopoly was established. Exports or new foundations of companies were not allowed. The development of the monopoly law was motivated by the Swedish industrialist Ivar Kreuger who in exchange granted high credits on favourable conditions to Germany as well as to 16 other countries.
The German Reich was at that time weakened by the worldwide economic crisis and the reparations due to the lost First World War. The government eventually agreed with Kreuger on a loan amounting to 500 million Reichsmark. The duration was 53 years, thus until 1983. The interest rate amounted to 6 %. The law was enacted on January 29, 1930 by the Reichstag. At that time, Kreuger had reached a market share of approximately 65% for his matches by means of dumping methods. However, a further increase seemed hardly possible without a monopoly position due to the competition by Russian cheap matches. Because of its identity with the German Reich, the Federal Republic of Germany adopted the match monopoly after the Second World War. The loan of the Reich was repaid completely and the match monopoly was repealed only at the scheduled date (January 15, 1983). Thereupon, prices declined by a third.”
Thus, there was only one type and one quality until then. From this time the different new types of matches seemed inferior to me, they broke more easily and burnt less long so that I almost burnt my fingers once in a while.
Still today I have troubles to contemplate this loss of quality certain for me in the light of grace, as a Key for art of Life puts it, although the lighting of the candle happens without problems today, despite my negative thoughts that don’t admit that the monopoly cost more money. |
Waiting for Agnes
I sit down on my seat and hear that Agnes is still busy in the bathroom. Thus, I have some time left until the main part of our breakfast starts. I settle back and reach for the New Testament from which we read a paragraph at the beginning of the breakfast and put it next to my plate. I realize how I gently stroke the book. For this New Testament is something special that, as many of the things I already mentioned, enchants our morning every day.
That is because it is a new translation – the new Geneva Translation – that actually sounds in a way that one reads some passages as if reading them for the first time. After more than thirty years of reading the bible and many old and modern translations I didn’t expect it to be possible to put the Greek text into a German fascinating like this.
Then my eyes fall on the opposite wall where many family pictures are hanging. It is my attempt to create a picture wall as I saw it as a guest in many extended families. An attempt for we are not a family taking many pictures. Compared to others it was a modest attempt, yet enough for some guests to gain an insight into our family.
However, I connect to this wall also my barely practiced manual skills as this wall turned out to be too hard to quickly drive a nail into it as I used to do. On the other hand, I didn’t have any ambition to think about possibilities of defeating it or finding another solution for the problem of hanging the pictures. For this reason, some pictures don’t hang there at all or not as they are supposed to.
I shake my head for every time I look at it I have these thoughts. However, this wall is also a part of me. And of course there are some great pictures of the children when they were still small or of Agnes and me when we were young.. |
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I hear Agnes leaving the bathroom. She will be here soon.
With surprise, I see a handmade pottery vessel discretely decorated full of pegs (not its original purpose) on the windowsill. We had bought this vessel a few months ago from a friend who was a qualified potter. He wasn’t well at that time. I quickly fold my emerging sorrowful thoughts into a paper aeroplane and send them in prayer to Jesus.
In this moment Agnes opens the door.
A new part of breakfast starts.
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