Cucumbers and Marmite

Today has been a tough day. Last week, the chaplain was in on a meeting with a girl who's been self-harming and not eating. A decision was reached that since she doesn't like the school psychologist, she has to talk to someone about the struggles she's having, and she surprised people by saying she wants the chaplain to be the person she talks to. Because of when I've been out of the office, I didn't meet her until today. In the past day or so, she said she's only eaten a few slices of cucumber and marmite on less than a full slice of toast. There are some questions if she's exaggerating her situation to get attention, even so, I don't think I'd even be able to stand up if I ate that little in a day. It was a hard thing for me to deal with. At one point the chaplain said to imagine being happy in her life, but she just shook her head no. It didn't seem so much like she couldn't imagine being happy, but that she wouldn't imagine being happy. He wasn't asking for her to believe there will be a time in her life when she'll be happy, just to imagine what being happy would feel like. I think that was the hardest thing for me. Not that she thinks her life is so bad she simply cannot imagine it getting better, but that she doesn't even want to try to imagine a better life. We'd go from these moments where we were trying to get her to agree to eat something, anything, for supper to laughing about stories of ridiculous taxi drivers. I've never knowingly had so much interaction with someone who's self harming and starving themselves, but I found it so hard to justify why someone who could seem so happy one minute was so convinced that her life is permanently stuck at rock bottom the next. It's been hard to figure out what to say to her. I can't imagine what's going on in her head, and trying to reason with her or offering encouragements that life will get better are getting nowhere. It seems like an impossible task, but at the same time, I feel like this is exactly where I'm supposed to be.

Wonderful Snow

Yesterday I went with the chaplain to do a junior school (essentially an elementary school) assembly. The assembly was about snow at first, which was surprisingly appropriate because he planned the assembly about a week ago, and we had a few hours of snow in the afternoon. But he got on to the real point of the assembly when he told about when he was a student sitting in a rather boring lesson at school about wonder. In the class were some international African students. During the lesson, it started to snow. The teacher stopped the lesson to point out their expressions. The African students had never seen snow before, and the teacher said that right there, all their faces was what he was trying to tell them about wonder. It's funny how I so often find the messages in children's stories more poignant than if the same story were told with an adult audience in mind. I suddenly started thinking about how often I actually appreciate the wonder in my own life. Most days I wake up and groan because I don't want to get up and go to work. It's not because I don't like my job, it's just that I inevitably went to bed later than I would have liked the night before, and my bed is so warm and cozy. But then I took a minute to think about all the wonder I don't pay attention to in my life. It's in the beautiful sunrise I never would have seen if I had stayed in bed. It's the little girl who takes my hand and looks up at me with the most precious smile I would never have gotten to know if I didn't help with music classes in the junior school. It's the girl whose mental health I've been worried about all year suddenly deciding she wants to be baptized and confirmed I would never have met if I didn't take this leap of faith to come here. Normally, I think of wonder as those things that do make you stop and appreciate how amazing life is, but I also think there are lots of little wonders that we miss everyday because we're too busy, or tired, or stressed, or upset, or a list of countless other things to actually pay attention to what's around us. I think our lives could be richer if we looked for wonder in the big things and the little things. So my challenge for myself is to look for wonder, and not let it just slide by me unnoticed.

He's Got the Whole World in His Hands

Today on my flight over to Dublin was the first time I've really been able to enjoy the view out a plane window. I realized in a new way how small we all are in the grand scheme of things. We walk on the skin of this earth that that hangs in balance in the black void of space. I'm a fan of the show Doctor Who, and despite the fact that its thought of a a quirky, science-y show, it often has surprising insight. One of my favorite lines says something about the universe being vast, complicated, and ridiculous, but sometimes impossible things happen that we call miracles. Even though my ideas are an amalgamation of creation and evolution, I think that line from Doctor Who holds true about our planet. In the whole universe, there is one earth, and it's beautiful. I think people to often forget how impossible the chances of this planet being here are, so they don't realize what a miracle it is. Right from the start of the Bible, we see "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters." ( Genesis 1:1-2). We have this tiny little planet in a sea of inhabitable darkness, that's held in place by the pull from our sun; yet God Himself decided that He wanted a something in the middle of it all. If He took the time to show off, maybe we should take more time to notice what a miracle it is.

My Little Blue Book

School got out here really early for Christmas break, so I've had travel plans lined up for months. I'm going to be spending a week in Dublin, and I'm leaving in a few days. For a while, I've known that the other gaps have other travel plans. The girl from Ecuador is planning to spend Christmas in Spain with her aunt. Just in the last few days, though, I've found out that she has to have a visa to go there, and they keep asking her for more details and documents, so she still doesn't know when she'll get to leave. In a panic, I sent a message to the girl that was in my job last year. "Do I need a visa? I thought you could go to other countries for short vacations without having a visa. " And then I found out that was my American privilege talking. Because I have a nice navy blue, American passport, I can land in most European countries, tell the immigration officer that I'm there on vacation and be sent on my way. Meanwhile my friend has been trudging through paperwork for over a week. As is often the case in situations of racial/ethnic/gender inequality, I initially felt guilty. Guilty that I can hop on a plane to Dublin without a second thought, when she can't even have a layover in some countries without a visa, even if she doesn't leave the airport. For her to travel to most countries outside South America she either needs a visa along with any additional paperwork the country may require, or has to pay a large amount of money to go as part of a tour group. As I thought about it, I wondered if this is strictly a matter of my American privilege, or if any of it has to do with how relationships between two countries are. For instance, if I wanted to go to Russia, would I have a similar experience, or does my American passport come with fairly universal ease of travel? Since I never traveled outside the United States before I came here, I really don't have the experience or knowledge to answer that question. For now, I'm just praying that my friend can get everything to work out because no one deserves to be alone for the holidays.

Bit of a Day

I went to bed at around 1:00 this morning after Skyping with friends from home. At that point it looked like it was going to be an uphill battle, but I had faith in humanity. This morning, I got up with that faith utterly shaken. When I found out that Trump won the election, I had a gut-wrenching fear. I felt like, as a woman, my body suddenly no longer belonged to me. Obviously the results of the election don't mean that men are encouraged, let alone required to suddenly become sexist or to assault women, but it makes me fear that when those incidents happen, they'll merely be shrugged off. Despite my privilege of being white, it still felt like all my basic human rights had been taken away, like people have no respect for the rights of their mothers, sisters, wives, daughters, and friends as females. This morning I just wanted to retreat inside myself and not talk to anyone. While YAGM is a one year program, I could stay on in England as a Time for God volunteer for a second year, but in too many ways that just feels like running away and hiding from the problem. As the day has progressed, though, I remembered (with the help of reminders from my fellow YAGMs) that while part of the point of YAGM is to spend a year in service to our brothers and sisters around the world, part of the call is also to go home and fight for the victims of inequality and injustice, ultimately to change the system that allows those things to happen. Politics has never been my call. One of the environmental studies options with my major was to focus on policy, which I avoided as much as possible. The flare of anger I feel in situations like this is too often, and too quickly cooled for it to lead me to significant action. I realize that my place is to stand with the oppressed and marginalized. I may be too shy to be a politician and too scared stand up to the politicians. But I can offer love and support to those whose voices are not being heard. In the past few years, I've thought pretty seriously about going to seminary school. I still don't know for sure if I will or not, but today has been a pretty big addition to the list of reasons why I should go to seminary. On this day, I've found comfort in the words of Lin-Manuel Miranda. "Love is love is love is love is love is love is love is love cannot be killed or swept aside." We may not end up with the America many of us hoped for, but the fight for love, acceptance, and equality goes on.

Beautiful People

This morning, I went to what could be referred to as a "hand raising" church. For a fun reference, I remembered the comedian Tim Hawkins' video on hand raising churches.

I read about the church before hand, so I had a fairly good idea of what I was getting into, but it's one of the closer churches to school, so I decided to check it out. The first part of the service was a lot of contemporary music, so needless to say, I didn't know any of it. During the music, I was contemplating why is it that I can go to a concert and dance around, but put me in church, and I'm a very good stereotypical Lutheran. Don't sit too close to the front, don't do anything that would call attention to yourself, and get some exercise in by doing Lutheran aerobics. I remember reading an article in a magazine I used to get where the author discussed church music. She talked about how contemporary music is great for relating to younger and more "modern" generations of church attendees, but that there's nothing like an old traditional hymn to really get at the really deep love or pain of life. That thought brought me to laugh at myself for remembering the Time for God motto of "it's not wrong, it's just different." I found myself really loving the message, though. With some of the "hand raising" churches I've been at, you notice it during the sermons as well, but I didn't here. From the feel I got while I was there, it felt like a church that is really involved in the community, but doesn't seek to smack everyone that walks by over the head with a Bible. They seem happy to live the love of God in the community, but save the "hand raising" for the four walls of their worship space. I just got back a couple days ago from a class on Christian Mission, where we discussed that in their true forms, being a missionary or evangelist isn't finding a megaphone and yelling for the heathens to repent. It's simple acts of kindness and love. Like offering something as simple as cup of hot chocolate after bonfire night, which is exactly what they're going to be doing next Saturday. Now, I definitely plan to do more church shopping, but that seems like a church community I could support.

Later this afternoon, a couple of the gap assistants and I went into town to get tea and scones. One of the girls was the French assistant, and she thought the barista had a French accent, so as we were paying, she asked where he was from. When he said France, they began speaking to each other in French. He didn't seem like an unfriendly guy before, but when he was able to speak in his native language, his face just lit up. Even though I only understood about two words out of their entire conversation, it was a really beautiful thing to watch. Before hand, I knew what she wanted to talk to him about, and she told us after we left that they weren't talking about anything more in depth than scones, but in that moment, I still saw God in the beauty of languages. And suddenly, I thought of the first Pentecost, and the amazement of hearing about God in your own language for the first time. Peter tells us of that amazement in Acts 2. "Utterly amazed, they asked: 'Are not all these men who are speaking Galileans? Then how is it that each of us hears them in his own native language?'" Later, he quotes Joel, "In the last days, God says, I will pour out my spirit on all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy, your young men will see visions, your old men will dream dreams." (Acts 2: 7-9, 17)

We all have different ways of communicating. Whether that be our faith, or the language we speak. In a world where it's all too easy to point out the flaws in our neighbors, but forget about the faults in ourselves, I think it's worth keeping in mind the wisdom and grace shown by my English brothers and sisters. It's not wrong, it's just different.

Perspective

Perspective is a funny thing. I've been thinking a lot lately about how my perspectives have changed during the time I've been here. So far just about none of my "job" part of being here has been what I expected. I mean, once the chaplain gets here, I don't know what to expect about what my job will be like, but I figured that until he arrived, I would be doing whatever a chaplain does, just by myself. In actuality, though, I've done a LOT of filing. But on Thursdays for the past few weeks, I spend my day in Food Tech, which is basically Home Ec. At first, I really didn't like it. I mean, I don't love filing either, but I actively disliked being in Food Tech my first day. Before I started that day, I expected my days to be filled with cooking/baking, and eating a lot of food. It's funny, thinking back on that because when I was still in Chicago, one of the activities we did was to write EXPECTATIONS on a blindfold, and I kept mine, and tied it to my bag to remind myself that during this whole year I will be carrying around expectations. Some of them will be realized, others will be broken, and others still will blind me to the reality of my situation and experience.

Anyway, back to perspective, that first day in Food Tech, I felt like all I did was follow around this crazy woman who ran around like a chicken with her head cut off, measure out ingredients for a class that I figured should be able to get their own ingredients to cook, spend an absurd amount of time cleaning and organizing cupboards and counter tops, and take out the trash. And, okay, maybe that is what a lot of my days in Food Tech have been like, but I enjoy my time there so much more now than I did at first. We kind of do have to run around because there is a lot to do, and even if that woman has some quirks (and who doesn't?) there's always enough time for her to offer me a cup of tea no less than 4 times a day. Those ingredients I thought the class should have to measure out themselves? They literally don't have time to because they're learning way more in depth cooking and nutrition than I ever did in Home Ec. It still does seem crazy how much time is spent organizing the cupboards, but not everyone to pass through that kitchen has mastered the art of if-you-use-it-clean-it-up-and-put-it-back yet. But most importantly, what I've found is that there are some really kind, caring women in that department. It's gotten to the point where I think even after the chaplain gets here, I'll want to stop in for the occasional cup of tea just to visit with them. And I think it's those kinds of things that are the most important lessons of this year; making friends and forming new ideas where I might never have looked to in the past.

(I had to. I love Ego.)