Brats & Oktobierkergaardfest

Labor Day Weekend I headed up to my Dad's cabin in Monroe, New York. Skirting NYC to the left, traffic wasn't too bad except for about 15 minutes of a jam on the NY Thruway. Road tripping up, I was reacquainted with how great an album Achtung Baby is from U2. I didn't intentionally pull it from the case, it just was luck of the draw.

His parents had first bought the place back in the late 50's as a refuge from New York City life, constraining and containing as it was. My grandparents had immigrated from Germany after WWI to the U.S. and did the whole American Dream thing. A cabin in the woods and by the lake was a small sign that America was their home. My Dad has spent the last 25 years or so rehabbing the place. The restoration of the Sistine Chapel even didn't take this long. It has kind of been my Dad's hobby and he fashions himself as Yukon George, forsaking modern amenities. Not really though.

I did make him get a cell phone so that if he had an accident out in the woods in the winter, he could get help versus becoming groundhog chum. I am not super keen on inheriting the Cabin. It is too far from my house to make it a weekend place. My ties, as weak as they are, are the strongest of all my brothers for various reasons. My Dad is disappointed that I am not more gung-ho but it is what it is. He's tried to coax-- and even guilt me--into helping him roof the place and I have been dodging his requests like bullets.

On Sunday, we were on the fence about roofing and when he decided to crack a beer out of his own free will, I was confident that no tar was going to be slung that day. A neighbor's son has stepped up to help my Dad out which makes me even more derelict.

The main event over Labor Day Weekend is an Oktoberfest with the others in the camp, most of whom are descended also from German immigrants. We second generationers like German food, beer, and the festivities, that is about as far as our loyalty to the Fatherland goes. The Brats were delish (drool), far more tasty than what I get at Costco. Just like Germans to hold an Oktoberfest in September. Anal maybe?

Saturday night, my cousins and I hung out swapping music. My cousin J.J. used to be the lead singer in a band called the Amish Outlaws. His regular gig is as a NYC cop on gang patrol and control. He is quite the showman. Pretty good rapper for a white boy too. I turned him onto King's X and a couple of other bands that I respect deeply. I was the last Bierker standing at 2:00 am Sunday morning, being bolstered by a two-hour nap earlier in the afternoon and moderate alcohol consumption.

Sunday night, I was kind of at loose ends. My Dad and I had drank our beer and shot the breeze like swiss cheese. I didn't want to drink more beer. I wound up getting a very wrenching headache on the right side of my head. I usually just have a dull ache from my CP. This brain ache was much deeper. It felt like the architecture of my head was being twisted like steel beams of a building in an earthquake. I have learned when this malady strikes to not fight it. The more I try to control it, the worse it gets. For whatever reason, my brain has these storms and as harsh as they are, there is not much I can do. What made this episode particularly difficult was the depth of the pain. Not typical.

I decided to pull a book off the shelf and came across a tome called Irrational Man which was a popular book in the 20th century about Existentialism. I was, of course, drawn to the chapter about Soren Kierkegaard and came to know of his writings better. Kierkegaard's mission was to confront a complacent Church in Denmark out of its institutional lethargy. He continuously railed against sleepy spirituality. For him, faith had to be personally subjective and objectively true. To pay lip service to the faith without experiencing it was blasphemous, and it made him resolute to shake things up in Copenhagen. As a Christian, his insights are devastatingly remarkable. He never got his due until long after his death. He was discouraged no doubt by his seeming lack of impact on his society but interestingly, he never doubted his own work. He knew he was right. He famously complained that his contemporaries didn't even misunderstand him correctly. George Bush Jr. garbled this one to being misunderestimated. Pretty sure George W. won't be considered a luminary in the future who just has to outwait time.

After Kierkegaard, I delved a bit into the next chapter about Nietzsche, that wild German thinker and destroyer of worlds, including his own. For one so adamant about superman, he had lifelong physical frailties that found no cure. He finally went nuts which should provide us with a cautionary tale of warning. Plus this, that Hitler and the Nazis found him inspirational.

Nietzsche never came to this point but instead fell into the infinite abyss of his own nihilism.

The infinite resignation is the last stage prior to faith, so that one who has not made this movement has not faith; for only in the infinite resignation do I become clear to myself with respect to my eternal validity, and only then can there be any question of grasping existence by virtue of faith. S.K.