I left there, but I'm not here yet.

"To leave one's country to go
and live in another country
in inferior conditions,
that is, without a safety net
and without recourse of return
to one's native land,
this seems to me to be the last great
human adventure.

I have to explain that people don't eat
the same food,
they don't dress
in the same manner,
they don't dance to the same rhythms,
they don't have the same smells
or the same accents,
and they certainly don't dream
the same way,
but it's up to me to adapt.

I have to explain it all in a language
that is not the one my mother speaks.
That's what traveling means.

[...]

I left there,
but I'm not
here yet.
Be patient, young man, it's only been a year.

I can't tell you
exactly when this city
ceased being a foreign city
for me.
Perhaps when I stopped looking at it."

Dany Laferrière, A Drifting Year (original French version: Chronique de la dérive douce)

I saved this excerpt as a draft in Blogger exactly 1 year and 1 day ago. About two weeks before we arrived in Montreal. While I was packing up my office in our house in Germany, taking notes on this novel for my dissertation.

Laferrière's writing is beautiful and painful, and I knew it would describe my experience in the year to come. I haven't opened Blogger in a year. But I knew this excerpt was here, waiting.

The first month in Montreal, I truly didn't have time to think much less blog or reflect. Each evening was spent apartment hunting, trying to figure out where to buy groceries, and clothes, and school supplies. And find a school for my son at all.

In the fall, I thought about blogging a little. But could only think of all the comparisons I would make between Montreal and Konstanz, Quebec and Germany, North American and European life and cultural norms. How some readers would laugh and nod in agreement. And others would be offended and think, "go back where you came from!"

Then the winter rolled in and with it all kinds of struggles. Finding our feet in my old-new land has been challenging. I had no desire to process it all on the internet. We went to far-away trusted friends and mentors for counsel. We changed our minds about some things. We made some mistakes. We learned. We clung to God alone. Not even close friends or church to cling to now.

We bought our first home, a tiny urban condo smaller than the last 2 homes we've had. Just a bit bigger than the 1-bedroom half-basement that housed us for the first 5 years of our marriage. I've plugged away at my dissertation in the midst of it all, and the end is in sight. My son learned to ride a bike, and understand French, and sing in Spanish. My daughter went from a baby to a fiercely independent child, diaper-free and talking a blue streak. We've made a surprisingly large network of contacts in different neighbourhoods, churches, schools. We've made some decisions, coming back to our true selves and defining our core values.

These last few months, I've realized I miss writing, and am starting to feel free enough to do it again in this space.

I write this on the eve of our first trip back "home" to that beautiful lake and city that nurtured us for 9 years. Where we got engaged, and grew up, and learned to open up in community. City of our children's births.

I guess you could say our feet have found the ground now in Montreal.
When we get back, they can start to grow roots.

Be patient, it's only been a year.

Where April went

I haven't posted in awhile...where did April go? Handed in a chapter of my dissertation. Two weeks of Easter holidays, with school and Kindergarten closed, being sick, marking papers, a few fun outings with the kids. Walks and picking flowers. Reading books. Then a quick trip to London at the beginning of May, handing in my 2 year PhD report and end-of-current-scholarship report last week.

April was a month of checking the mailbox everyday, waiting for the promised letter from a scholarly agency. They claimed it would be sent in April, and these official-types are usually true to their word. The letter saying I had made it into the final round came via real mail, so I knew this one would too. A job I had applied to in Montreal, along with a colloquium, had also said they would get back to me in April. So every day was full of eager email checking, wondering if the pieces for our big move would start to fall into place.

Nothing.



Some days it was frustrating. Why do people name deadlines and not meet them? I vented repeatedly, if only they hadn't said April, I wouldn't have been expecting anything.

I worked on my patience. Trust. Letting go. Just doing the next thing. Remembering it is not all about me.

May rolled around. I gave the Official Scholarly People a week of grace, knowing that real mail could add an extra week. True enough a week into May, a friend happened to call while I was working in our third floor office. I meandered to the ground floor while on the phone with her. I happened to see our mail woman going down our back lane through the living room windows. I know when she comes, I know her routine. I was standing in the kitchen, still on the phone, and watched her approach my front door with one piece of mail in her hand.

The recognizable brown envelope.

After about two more minutes I made a lame excuse about needing to get back to work, and hung up with my friend. I ran to the mailbox. Glee and screeching ensued. Six months after I applied, finally an answer.  And an exceedingly, abundantly above-and-beyond kind of answer at that!

We've been finally gone ahead with booking flights, one-way, on a cheapo airline that makes you pay extra for food, booking seats together, and does not offer personal in-flight screens (all the fun of flying we usually enjoy). But they are the only ones who offer one-way tickets for half the cost of return, and for a family of four (with one baby squeezing in under the 2 year old wire), it makes a difference.

So we'll pack meals and games and books and little presents for the kids and we'll make it through. And we'll start a new life in Canada.

We've got a furnished apartment booked for our first little while in Montreal. I did tons of research on this and the flights, playing out different scenarios. Wondering and second guessing and ... There are still uncertainties and question marks about how the whole packing up our lives here thing will play out, whether we will drive here or there when, who can come to help when. The scholarship I've received won't feed a family of four, but we know it will all come together. We've already experienced so much surprising provision we're looking forward to see what else will happen that we couldn't even have asked or thought.

But even in the midst of not having all our ducks in a row, it feels good to make some decisions. And stick to them. Declutter mental real estate, so to speak. Free up that mental space I'd had full of weighing the options and researching alternatives and move forward in trust.

Freedom from the Career vs. Calling trap {Book Review}

"In the Christian view, the way to find your calling is to look at the way you were created. Your gifts have not emerged by accident, but because the Creator gave them to you. [...] What if you're struggling under and unfair boss or a tedious job that doesn't take advantage of all your gifts? It's liberating to accept that God is fully aware of where you are at any moment and that by serving the work you've been given you are serving him." 

(Every Good Endeavor: Connecting Your Work to God's Work by Timothy Keller, 241)

Over the course of my 20s, I went through a lot of angst about "career" vs. "calling". I had two desires within me -- to pursue academic studies and a "secular" career, in the jargon many Christians use, and the strong desire to help others find the joy, peace, and hope I have found in following Jesus. I hadn't had much career advice in my life, I more or less knew my strengths and I knew what I was interested in, but could always imagine a great variety of careers or "ministry" roles I would be happy in. I had the luxury and privilege most women in the world today don't have: choice. I had many options before me: travel to different countries, fields of study, pursuing paid work or volunteering, getting married or not, having kids or not, working or not. Sometimes I found these choices more bewildering than freeing. 

I sought counsel. I tried things out. I failed at things and, especially thanks to my husband's unflagging support and belief in me, picked myself up again and kept going. Even though I had always been interested in studying literature and writing, for too long I believed somehow that the humanities weren't important enough. ("Not that kind of doctor.") I didn't yet know that narrative could save lives, that stories change the world. I doubted doing a Master's, wondered if I should just spend that time and energy volunteering at church. This inner battle between "career" and "calling" led to a lot of worries, heartache, indecision, guilt and angst.

If I had read Tim Keller's Every Good Endeavor 10 years ago, it would have saved me a lot of grief. I started the book in January and could. not. put. it. down. 

The foreward by Katherine Leary Alsdorf grabbed me by the throat (I read it online and immediately downloaded the Kindle edition of the book). Someone was actually, finally verbalizing and addressing the questions I'd had rolling around in my subconscious about work, career and calling. 

"For the next decade, I served in executive leadership in several entrepreneurial tech companies in New York City, Europe, and Silicon Valley. In each job and each day I wrestled with what it means to be “called to serve God” as a leader in business. Redeemer and its senior pastor, Tim Keller, had given me good grounding. I’d learned that I was supposed to be changed by the gospel of Jesus Christ and therefore be “used by God” in my relationships with others, and maybe even be distinctive in the way I led companies. Nice concepts, but what did they look like in practice? The models were few and often seemed remnants of an age when most of America went to church. One CEO would share that he kept a Bible on his desk and that occasionally someone in the company would ask about it. Another prayed and the company thrived. Many viewed their corporate jobs primarily as a means to make lots of money to give away to charities and organizations they cared about. When I asked pastors and businesspeople how their faith related to their work, they often answered that a Christian's primary, if not sole, mission in the workplace was to evangelize those with whom they worked. But most business people would quickly add that evangelism was not one of their gifts. And none of these approaches addressed the issue of how Christians' faith should affect the way they worked." (12)

Keller's book goes far beyond these common, thin models of integrating faith and work and provides a thick, relevant theology of work. I was all "yes" and "amen" and highlighting. Keller addresses why we work--not as a punishment given to Adam after he ate the forbidden fruit, but that work is good, that Adam and Eve worked alongside God in the garden before "the fall." We get to work, to create, to contribute to society. Keller addresses God's Plan for Work, Our Problems with Work and the Gospel and Work. 

"The question must now be 'How, with my existing abilities and opportunities, can I be of greatest service to other people, knowing what I do of God's will and of human need?'" (67)

"Christians are to be fully engaged at work as whole persons, giving their minds, hearts and bodies fully to doing the best job possible on the task at hand." (214)

Too often in Christian circles there is a glorification of "church work", whether volunteer or paid, that being in the church building 24/7 is somehow better than doing any other kind of work. Yet it was Martin Luther who so profoundly preached the value and equality of all kinds of work. 

"First, if religious works were crucial to achieving a good standing with God, then there would always be a fundamental difference between those in church ministry and everyone else. But if religious work did absolutely nothing to earn favor with God, it could no longer be seen as superior to other forms of labor." (73)

 Keller writes so poignantly, 

"There may be no better way to love your neighbor, whether you are writing parking tickets, software, or books, than to simply do your work. But only skillful, competent work will do. [...] all jobs--not merely so-called helping professions--are fundamentally ways of loving your neighbor. Christians do not have to do direct ministry or nonprofit charitable work in order to love others through their jobs. " (76, 79) 

Keller gives insight in how to work for the glory of God and good of all people in many different vocations, often specifically dealing with higher education, artists and writers, of particular interest to me, but many other examples as well.

"So Christians are free to study the world of human culture in order to know more of God; for as creatures made in His image we can appreciate truth and wisdom wherever we find it." (182)

I highly recommend every person to read this book, whether you are in a "secular" or "ministry" job, stay-at-home parent, in the service industry, farmer, educator, in a helping profession, business executive, student or entrepreneur -- this book is for everyone. Keller's insight into the value of ALL kinds of work just might change your entire outlook on what you do each day. It is essential for the Church to value and understand the theology of work as Keller elucidates it and encourage its people how to live and work in this gospel freedom. This book is a game changer.

Review of: 
Every Good Endeavor: Connecting Your Work to God's Work by Timothy Keller (2012)
Amazon Affiliate Link used. If you buy the book by clicking on this link, you will not pay anything extra but I will receive a tiny subsidy to help finance this blog.

Finishing

It's been quiet here as I've been taking more time than usual to pray, journal, and meditate on the Bible, usually the "verse of the day" supplied on my phone by the BibleApp. It is handy (source of the German word for mobile phone which is literally, Handy) and usually very applicable to my day. I am attempting to truly meditate on a verse: let it circle round and round in my mind, pray and reflect on which words or phrases stick out to me. I read the verse several times throughout the day and let it sit in my Spirit, make room in my mind and life for His words.

We gave up our daily double espresso infused cappuccino (or two) for the last two weeks of February. Something dear to us, and time consuming to make and enjoy, to make more space for God. I was surprised how dependent i have become on coffee in the past two years, how much I savour and enjoy it. I had withdrawal symptoms for several days and often sorely missed my morning delight. Instead, we've been going to God in extra measure for strength, for alertness, for help to get into the day. We've gone to him with concrete questions and He has met us there. Not always with answers spelled out just the way I'd like, but with a calm confidence that He has a plan, He is good, I can trust him. After a week I felt our questions answered, but we continued the commitment we'd made, also interceding more for friends and bringing their questions and big decisions before His throne of grace. 

I've realized I am not always good at finishing.

But in Christ, I am a finisher.

In Christ, I can be true to my word, finish the project, write the chapter, tackle the overwhelming, follow through.

May the God of endurance and encouragement grant you to live in such harmony with one another, in accord with Christ Jesus, that together you may with one voice glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Romans 15:5-6

What initially stood out to me in this verse I meditated on a fortnight ago was that he is a "God of endurance and encouragement." He encourages me. I often sorely need his encouragement (especially on no coffee). To continue with my PhD. To get up when I am exhausted. To pursue friendships. To persevere in prayer for people. He cheers me on to keep going in faith, in good works. He endures. He doesn't leave a task incomplete. He doesn't give up on people. He doesn't quit when things get too hard. He doesn't get bored. Oh, how I need his endurance!

The mountain.

Also about a fortnight ago, we finally sent off the very thick wad of paperwork for my husband's permanent residency application so he can live in Canada (!), replete with around 100 photos I had carefully dug out or printed, sorted, and labeled to prove our true and enduring relationship. I had to re-read my old journals from when we fell in love to put down accurate dates. We included a few old love letters and even the notorious phone bill of over $1000 that we accidentally incurred while he was staying at a friend of a friend's house in Alberta, calling me on my not-so-handy Handy in Greece.

Somehow, I couldn't believe we act finished it. We had worked on the paperwork over the course of several months. He had to drive 3 hours each way to Munich just for a doctor's appointment to prove he is perfectly healthy (and his lungs so big from his daily cycling commute the technician could hardly fit them on the x-ray). We had to pay for various forms, proofs, official translations. I had wanted to finish the application during Christmas break and felt it was a huge mountain we would never conquer amongst the rest of life's laundry, labour, loving we have to do.

But we did. We finished it. We did the next thing, and now those things are done. Amazing! 

February has been a month of feeling free, following the plan of simply doing what I can do, doing the next thing. Now we have other next things, but I feel a momentum building, like we are coasting along a flat plain rather than staring at an insurmountable mountain. And soon, I know God is going to come through with the things that only He can do.

What tasks feel insurmountable to you today? Big things, little things. Stuff you hate doing and just put off? I'm tackling my mountain (of books, that pesty theory chapter I simply need to write), just doing the next thing, eating my frogs. Join me?

Welcome 2014.

We've all rung in the New Year by now and these two weeks 'off' (an academic is never off work...the same amount of work, or more, just sits there waiting for you) have afforded us time with relatives, hours of building Duplos, wrestling and reading, hot chocolate with marshmallows with the kids and the chance to pass pinkeye around the family. We're good about sharing. We took turns.

The excitement of staying up late on Christmas Day to Skype
with his cousin 9 hours behind us, show each other their new Playmobil
collections and make silly faces.

We thus enjoyed a quiet New Year's Eve with a break from socializing. Evenings as a couple have become all too rare so we're trying to pack a lot of them in this week, with time for reading, reflection on last year and aligning ourselves for the year to come. Someone may be so unused to relaxing in the evening that he was snoring softly on the couch by 10 p.m. So I had space to journal and choose my one word for 2014.

It snuck up on me.

Discipline.

Not glamorous. Doesn't even sound fun or grace-filled but oh, so needed.

A few nights ago I couldn't sleep, my mind was racing with all of the to-dos in preparation for our family's continental shift coming up only 7 (!) months from now. Not being able to sleep when given the opportunity has been rare since our 2nd baby was born -- I remember this so-much-to-do-might-as-well-get-up-and-do-it feeling from the last time we moved house, when I was 8 months pregnant with Annabelle. So I got up and started to get a few tasks done, wrote lists, and ended up setting up some new routines for myself for 2014. I didn't set out to do this but after I had done it, I realized that having more reliable rhythms for our family's day, when we get housework done, plan and shop for and cook meals, would probably bring a lot more peace into all of our lives and productivity into mine. I am not naturally a highly structured person. I read somewhere that introverts usually work in fits of inspiration and productivity and that is me to a T. I prefer to just take things as they come, sleep when it suits me...but with 2 young kids and a Ph.D. that is begging to be finished in 2014, I need a new strategy.

As I sat down to reflect on NYE the word discipline came to my mind quite quickly. As I read over my journal from the past year I saw how much this has been a desire of mine, a felt need in my life. We have big dreams, big goals, big vision and I think I'm at the place where I need more systems in place to achieve them, the discipline to stick to routines. Getting up early. Getting in the Word. Making the daily, not-glamorous decisions that will take us day by day towards the big goals.

In the past two years I had focused on a few other areas of my life, like budgeting and finances (thank you Dave Ramsey baby steps!), which have given us a lot of freedom. I've realize that I can't focus on forming too many new habits at once, so I am grateful for what has been achieved already (and there will be no Whole30s on my radar for awhile).

Welcome 2014. Discipline, let's do this (and I've given my husband permission to throw water on me if I refuse to get out of bed when the 6 a.m. alarm rings.)

Linked up to #oneword365

On why children are an asset to my academic career

I have spent hours this week filling out a grant application (the academic's "hobby") for the rest of my Ph.D. program. The duration of the grant (bottom line: how much money one could receive) is determined based on how many months of full-time doctoral studies one has already done. If you ever studied part-time or had something delay your program of study, you have to prove it. I was allotted a maximum of half a page to explain my unconventional doctoral schedule encompassing two babies and a half-year working as an Assistant Professor which enable me to still qualify for this grant. I wrote it and explained, no big deal. 

But I felt strange calling my children a "special circumstance that has interrupted or delayed my Ph.D."

I have often said that my children have helped me work more effectively, and had other academic parents nod in agreement. I now have limited windows of work time, and so I put my head down and concentrate. I get a lot done. Rarely do I check social media or do anything non-work related during work time. Now that I work most days from my home office, I ignore the housework that could be done, or the bed that could be napped in (3 years of rarely sleeping through the night and counting!) My work time is invaluable to me, and I want to honour my boss, the German taxpayers funding my scholarship, and the One who created work and gave me the capacity to take pleasure in it.

I perceived that there is nothing better for them than to be joyful and to do good as long as they live; also that everyone should eat and drink and take pleasure in all his toil—this is God's gift to man. Ecclesiastes 3: 12-13

I have the luxury of spending about half of my day in the quiet of my office (introverts who are mothers of young children say amen). I love what I do, but I also love standing up, using the 8 minute walk to Kindergarten to clear my head and shake out the kinks in my mouse-clicking arm. I relish picking up my children: it takes a second for their gaze to rest on me and make the click of recognition in their busy little minds and bodies. A smile bursts onto my toddler's face as she wiggles and squeals and hurls her way toward me. My rambunctious three year old always greets me the same way: no smile, no words, he hurtles headlong towards me and tackles my legs. 

Before I had kids, I could sit up all evening researching for my M.A. if I wanted to. I could write all night if the words were flowing and sleep some other time. Back then my husband and I were both students, and we often had meals at strange times, or ate bread or cereal while we worked evenings/nights/weekends - whatever needed to be done, whatever suited us. Obviously, we don't work like this anymore. We love to spend as much awake-time with the kids as possible, so our children help us to be as effective and efficient with our work time as possible. We still tend to go to bed too late, but no matter what we'll be awake at 6 and the morning routines will start again. 

Children give rhythm and routine to our days. When I was home during two winters with my two newborns, with no appointments, classes or jobs forcing me to be somewhere at a certain time, I languished. I thrive on deadlines and a bit of structure, thus I love our new Kindergarten-dictated routines. The drop off and pick up times provide us with a nice framework to organize our day around. I know my time is limited, which is a motivator and a certain freedom in itself.

Do children get in the way of my career? Of course, I have fewer hours to work than a doctoral student with no children. Of course, I took time off with my newborns that someone who didn't have babies did not take off. I choose to rarely travel to conferences or workshops in other cities while my kids are so young (which is also a plus, as I am very discerning about what is really worth going to, and which conferences are the best fit for my research). However, the bottom line is that I probably I would have finished my Ph.D. sooner and published more articles if I didn't have children. 

Yet they are my blessing, my very great reward.

I do not regret the maternity leave I took with my babies for an instant. I do not sigh with frustration when I have to interrupt the flow of ideas that are finally getting somewhere because it is time to pick up my children. My afternoons with them, whether filled with joyful giggles and adorable glances, or tired tears and disobedience, are priceless. I am their mama and want to be with them. They inspire me. They refresh me. They give life perspective. They save me from my workaholic tendencies. 

As an academic and an introvert, I can tend towards reflecting, analyzing, reading, journalling: that is, living very much inside my own mind. In the current season in which I am not teaching, just writing, writing, writing my dissertation, my kids help me get outside my head and into the tangible world of play-dough and a pile of pillows masquerading as a bear cave. The tactile world of angel-baby-hair and velvety soft skin, of wet bed sheets and scrubbing jam off the floor on hands and knees. Of one-minute editions of "Noah and the people who make fun of him" and "Jonah and the whale who swallows him," reenacted for the hundredth time. The world of foggy-crisp air filling our lungs on our 8 a.m. walk. The world in which my son exclaims gleefully "Look!" while I put on his sister's shoes; I follow his finger and see the pink-tinged sunrise sky just now breaking, and we thank the One who painted it (and I thank God for the wonder in my little boy's eyes). The world of sidewalk chalk-covered hands and a big brother sharing his Kindercappuccino with his sister. The soothing routine of sorting clean laundry, the sense of accomplishment at seeing tiny socks matched and clean clothes provided, order restored.

With or without the grant, I'll keep proclaiming that children are an asset to academic careers. And they are my heritage, my blessing, my very great reward.  

Required Reading {Engaging Culture}

As a child, I lived much of the time in the imagined 19th century of my mind, playing dress-up and reading hundreds of girl's novels about the olden days. Laura Ingalls and Mandie were among my best friends. 

It seemed more exciting, more romantic, more adventurous than my own farm childhood.

I often wished I had been born in another time and place.

~

At a recent academic conference, I was chatting with an acquaintance from another university, catching up on our private and professional lives. We discussed her past research in Canadian literature, and a novel both of us had read. She raved about this novel, while I expressed that although it was a page-turner I had read within the space of 24 hours, years ago in a tent while camping in Austria, I had found some scenes in the novel extremely disturbing. 

"Am I just overly sensitive when it comes to protecting children and abuse?" I wondered. The novel gave a stark and realistic portrayal of a Maritime community, a certain kind of life in a specific time and place. 

Knowing each other to both be believing Christians, we cautiously broached the subject of what is acceptable for a Jesus-follower to read, to research, to teach. 

Is there merit in fiction which portrays evil? In filling one's mind with images, stories which disturb, even disgust?

This is a topic I have wrestled with for a few years. On the one hand, I believe each reader must be discerning about what does them good and may cause them to have thoughts which are negative, unhelpful, even sinful. The Bible teaches us to "gird up the loins of our minds." To think about, to dwell on, that which is honourable, pure, just, lovely, excellent, commendable, praiseworthy. 

But perhaps there is a difference between reading, and dwelling on. 

I do not believe Christians should confine their reading to the sterilized "Christian fiction" (often taking place in a romanticized 19th century or among the Amish) of the Christian bookstore. This kind of reading seldom portrays realistic, present-day characters, with real questions and problems, real sin, real struggle, and real redemption. It rarely helps you to better understand your neighbour who is facing a divorce, your brother-in-law's alcoholism, your high-school aged son who feels lost and isolated, hiding a porn addiction, the bi-polar colleague with erratic behaviour, nor the homeless man you pass everyday in the street feeling guilty about. Rather, "Christian fiction" provides escapism from the realities of life in the here and now, the place God has pulled me out of eternity to live in. 

Escapism does not honour a God who determined the exact times and places where we should live.

~ 

As I've mentioned before, I found great encouragement in knowing that the prophet Daniel did a Bachelor's in literature. He was appointed to a place of influence in a foreign Kingdom after having studied the language and literature of the Chaldeans for three years.

Jesus hung out with people of all walks of life, from the despised prostitute to the hated rich tax collector, from working-class fishermen to the religious leaders of the day. He engaged with his culture, ate and drank and went to parties, and never shied away from a controversy. He cared about people. Messed up, broken, sinful people like us. He was not oblivious to the world going on around him, to the needs and struggles. He was not hiding in his holiness.

~

Literature - short stories, novels, poetry - is an amazing tool for understanding and engaging the culture we live in. Classic works of a nation's fiction, as well as current bestsellers, should be required reading for anyone hoping to impact that culture. Fiction gives us a window into understanding peoples' motivations, their world view, the history and politics which impact their way of reasoning, behaving, deciding, believing.

There will be things which disturb. You probably won't like all of the characters and wish you were like them, or even want to cheer for them. 

Fiction gives us eyes to see, ears to hear. It enables us to go where perhaps our own feet never will, to ask questions we are too embarrassed to speak out, to understand and give a frame of reference for starting a conversation.

Here. 

In the real world, with our real, broken, messy colleagues, family, neighbours, ourselves.

Now.

For such a time as this.

Why I didn't go to my university graduation

Call me a CanLit nerd, but the Giller Prize longlist came out today and that's cool.

I've always been what you might call a "nerd." I got good marks. I liked reading. I was the kind of kid who dreamt of studying at Oxford, who slogged my way through classics of English literature passed down from my seven-years-older brother when he returned home from university in the summer (for some reason I wasn't daunted by titles like Jude the Obscure and Hard Times). The other kids on Bus 17, trundling around the dusty Ontario countryside with the windows half-open and gravel ricocehting off the rattling sides, had a nickname for me: "Coolness Einstein." I was OK with it.

I don't remember anyone ever trying to help me choose a career when I was a teenager. I had a guidance counselor, but I don't recall any meetings with her or personality tests filled out, although I am sure I must have done something of this nature. I always knew which subjects in school interested me the most, and as I was at the top of my class in several subjects my teachers probably assumed I'd turn out alright and left it at that. My parents have always been supportive of whatever I have chosen to do without trying to bend my interests one way or the other.

This resulted in me leaving the farm for university in Toronto at the naive tender age of 18 without having a specific career in mind. Nor did I know what my majors would be. (We only had to decide in second year, as far as I remember, and I could change these later as well.) This all seems very namby-pamby when told to Germans, where there are 3-year apprenticeships for every kind of trade and a university student must apply for a specific program of study, having chosen her major/minor combination before taking her first class (though this can also be changed later, after a lot of wrangling with German bureaucracy and possibly changing universities).

I arrived at Victoria College in the University of Toronto in September 2000, full of romantic ideas about studying in ivy-covered walls, having signed up for five courses in five different subjects. English literature, French language, the History of European Civilization, Political Science 103 and a special first-year seminar with only 10 students taught by an esteemed professor about Renaissance Rome. It was a phenomenal first year, broad, enriching and with all the excitement of a WASP farm girl in an international metropolis (fellow residents on my floor marveled "Your grandparents lived in Canada too?!" while others corrected my pronunciation of Cal-gary).

The following year I chose a double major, but after spending my third year at Université Laval in Québec City I chose not to return to Toronto for my fourth year. I was in love with Quebec and when presented with an invitation/challenge to stay, I jumped at the chance. I changed my double major to a double minor and suddenly, just like that, I had finished my B.A. My graduation was scheduled for a few months later, on my birthday actually. I weighed the cost of the 8 hour train ride, the fact that I would not be graduating with any of my friends, and that I would only be allotted 2 tickets for guests, and decided not to attend the illustrious ceremony at Convocation Hall in Toronto.

Photo via utoronto.ca

Deciding to not get the four-year "Honours" BA was a challenging decision for my young self who had always placed a great deal of stock in my grades, measuring my self-worth by whether or not I excelled in academics. I was sent a notice to pick up a package at the post office on a cold November day in Quebec City, my boots squeaking on the narrow, hard-packed snow-path that had replaced the sidewalks. When I picked up the sturdy, flat, cardboard envelope, I knew it contained my Bachelor's degree. I didn't open it.

Not wanting to mar it, I carried the closed envelope gingerly as I tramped onwards to my intended destination, a movie theatre in the pyramide. I was a little distracted by the envelope at my feet while I watched Mona Lisa Smile in French. In the English-speaking world, graduations are a rite of passage, a big deal. I didn't celebrate mine, which felt a little strange. I wasn't sure if I should care. I winced knowingly at how the movie's motif was rather à propos to how I had bucked the expectations I had had for my own life. At the time, I thought I was giving up the possibility of ever doing a graduate degree (little did I know I would end up marrying a German, start a Master's degree 5 years later in English literature, and afterwards do my PhD in Germany where there are no 4-year B.A.s anyway. And where just getting your degree sent to you in the mail is par for the course.)

Now I can see that those hard decisions I made at 21, to "give up" my academic dreams and pride to stay in the culture I loved were a necessary part of sifting my character. I needed to learn how to not find my self-worth and value in my performance, in what I achieve, what I do. Finding my value in who I am in Christ, in being simply a child of God, looking at his promises and what his word says about me has proven to be enough, more than enough, and the only thing I can't lose when life doesn't turn out how I planned.

I find myself this week marking undergraduate term papers and attending an academic conference in Konstanz. That confused, -40 winter in Quebec City with my Bachelor's degree in a cardboard envelope at my feet, I would never have guessed I'd be here in Germany, doing this, exactly a decade later. I still have that envelope, it now houses a few more Very Important Things and has proven handy as I traipse across borders. There is an upcoming crossroads, and again my career could take several diverse turns. The pathway to your dream is not always straight or without delays, and sometimes the way you end up taking is the way that took you. Rarely is it the way you once thought would best get you there. The destination, the dream, often grows up along with you.

Border-crossers

I love/hate this university courtyard terrace with its postmodern architecture; I hate the dips, slants, precarious cobblestone steps and myriad potential for tripping, catching a heel, falling in front of a hundred students/colleagues/professors while trying to balance a coffee in one hand, lunch in another, and a transparent library bag of books slung over your shoulder. I love soaking up one of the surely last hot days of summer, trying to infuse the coffee directly into my bones after a sedentary morning proofreading an article in my north-side, shaded office. I love overhearing conversations in a handful of languages; a post-doc complaining in English to his silent colleagues about both his boss and his Hiwis (student assistants) "I said yes but then some minutes later I thought, I am not a secretary!"; a young female student exclaims loudly in German "It was on sale!!"; the Chinese man talking loudly to too compatriots at a picnic table; another group sitting cross-legged speaking Spanish. German students explaining how hard it was to get accepted to their program of choice; others, obviously all non-native-English speakers, getting to know new friends in Europe's common tongue. I am reminded it is September, not quite "back to school" time at German universities (the fall-winter semester begins in mid-October), but there are still plenty of people in the library, finishing papers, studying for their state exams, and a batch of new ERASMUS international students freshly arrived in town for their pre-semester German course.

I took that same German course 8 years ago when I first moved to Konstanz. It was the second German course of my life, after having providentially learned to count to 100, introduce myself (Ich bin Christina. Ich komme aus Kanada. Ich spreche englisch und französisch.) and sing Grün Grün Grün sind alle meine Kleider in an introductory German course at Université Laval in Quebec City three years prior. Back then I had no idea I would marry a German, move to Germany, and end up with German children with whom I would later sing that same children's song. Somebody else did. 

That month-long September Kurs back in 2005 equipped me with the simple past and future tenses and some key vocab to help me decode rental ads in my desperate search to find a room to rent in a WG (living community, that is, an apartment shared with other people who are often strangers at first). During my first month in Germany, my then-boyfriend now-husband was out of town working and I was thrown in the deep-end, alone in a new culture, going to apartment-interviews by myself armed with my vast knowledge of German and hopefully cute enough accent to get me a roof over my head (everyone thought I was French, with my Québécois-tinged German pronunciation).

During that month I crossed the Swiss-German border every day from where I was staying on the Swiss side to get to the university and to search for a German abode. In the evenings I would wander the streets searching for reception on my German cell phone so I could talk to my boyfriend on the phone, telling him of all my incomprehensible and frightening encounters with the German species. We'd often crossed that border in trepidation the preceding spring, when I was just visiting him and had technically overstayed my official welcome in the EU.

Why are border crossings always laced with fear, tinged with trepidation? Even in those with nothing to hide, with all the right papers and none of the wrong baggage, borders make us nervous. 

I grew up an hour and a bit away from the Windsor-Detroit border, between Canada and the United States. Approaching a border always was coupled with getting our story straight, rehearsing the most straight-forward way of explaining where we were going and why. As kids we sensed the tension in our parents voices, the command to "Quiet down!" At the border, the customs official is clearly in control and we must be polite, clear and direct to avoid any uncomfortable delays or random searches.

Although borders are invisible, they are felt. They are felt by those international students, new to this university, this culture. Flying over the ocean on my first few trips to and from Europe, I always spent some of the plane ride in deep introspection. [I chuckled to myself remembering this during our flight to Canada last month. Now our flights are consumed with trying to keep the kids reasonably quiet, amused, dry, fed, and hopefully at some point asleep. Now I juggle snack boxes and board books, soother and drawing tablet rather than staring out at the plane's wing having a metaphysical moment. These days I am excited if I get a chance to actually finish one in-flight movie after seventy-billion interruptions.] Back then, I would gaze out over the cloud-carpet and journalling what I was leaving behind and my hopes and goals for what awaited me. Crossing borders means transition, usually leaving behind one stage of life, one adventure, and passing on to the next. The liminal space of an airplane and a long flight allow time to take in the border, time to swallow the crossing and all its implications. 

Borders separate, they demarcate difference. Borders give security by retaining the power of exclusion.   Europe's borders are becoming more permeable, cities (and even villages) are ever more diverse. This university courtyard buzzes with border-crossers; many of these students and faculty have crossed borders and do so daily be they political, disciplinary, cultural, socio-economic, generational. 

I too long to be a border-crosser, one who erases the lines that separate a little more each day.

How studying literature helps you change the world

"A B.A./M.A./Ph.D. in English? What are you going to do with that?"* 

I've heard variations on this theme. Dave Ramsey, for all his very helpful and practical financial advice, rails against doing a degree in something as asinine as literature on his radio show. Literature isn't useful, you say?  

Knowing how to read, how to intelligently engage with a text (and texts are all around us), how to express your ideas coherently in written and oral form, think critically, engage with culture, explore the struggles and inner lives of characters who are just like the people in the world around you...these are just a few of the benefits of doing a degree in English lit. (Or Québécois, or German, or Hindi literature, of course.) I admit, a degree in literature is not a surefire road to riches, but the skills one learns when reading and studying literature can be used in any career (i.e. right-hand man to a king) and are immensely helpful to anyone who wants to understand, impact and, dare I say it, "change" the world around them. 

Here a brief video about the research of Prof. Dr. Linda Hutcheon (University of Toronto) who will be coming to a conference we are hosting in Konstanz in September, on why an English degree helps you in every career:

For local academic types, she'll be giving an open lecture on September 18, 16:30 in the Audimax entitled "From Reader Response to Reader Response-Ability."

*Note this is not a direct quote from Dave Ramsey, just a typical sentence I have heard several times from various people. And similar to some things I've heard on his podcast :-)

Be still (living in the tension between here and there)

My mind is full, neck is stiff, right wrist is cracking and cramping from too many arrow strokes down and mouse clicks. There are articles to read, sort, take notes on. Books to be ordered through inter-library loans; fortunately HiWis (student assistants) are still on duty to photocopy the dozens and dozens of pages. An abstract to be sent in for a conference. Suitcases to pack, travel arrangements to be made, last-minute gifts to be purchased and Canadian dollars to pick up from the bank.

We're flying to Canada on Friday. It will be the first time I have seen my brother and sisters, their spouses and children (our kids have 7 Canadian cousins. Actually 2 of those are Americans, technically.) in two years. My parents were able to come and see us in Montreal in April 2012 when we were there for a research trip for my PhD, and were also able to visit us last fall. But I miss those dear siblings of mine! We have lived apart for the past 15 years, first scattered all over North America and then I took the leap across the pond in 2004 making it notably harder to visit. I am grateful they all made the trip to Germany for our wedding in 2006; I know (even better now) what a sacrifice an overseas trip can be when you've got a young family.

At last my siblings et al. will meet our baby girl, who is almost not a baby anymore. There will be splash pads to visit, walks among the Tulip trees and sandy beaches (with hopefully no biting flies) at Rondeau Park, wiener roasts over the campfire on our parents' farm. I am hoping to score some more mint-condition kids books at local yard sales. Two years ago we saw a family with a few tables and blankets full of goods spread out on the front lawn in my tiny hometown, so we pulled over. When I inquired about the price of Bear Snores On the mom looked at me hopefully, "Maybe 25 cents?" Sold. Bear Snores On has become our favourite since then, inspiring many a bear cave of couch cushions and popcorn and black tea parties.

More than the packing and travel plans, my heart is reeling from all the Big Thoughts and Plans my husband and I have been talking over the past few days. Priorities, dreams, realigning the course of our future to what is most important to us and where we sense God tugging our hearts and footsteps. Remembering passions and ideas suppressed or left dormant out of necessity. Following Jesus into the great unknown, where feet may fail. The aches and tension in my body indicate that I am holding on too tightly to worry, to fear, to expectation and excitement and just Thinking. Too. Much.

Breathe in, breathe out. Have a coffee and take in the view from the top of the Mensa (cafeteria) overlooking our lake and the Mainau. There is a tension, living in the now, between here and there.

Be still and know that He is God.

Narrative Saves Lives

So there is a new "narrative mapping" tool out there, touted as the "new instagram for writers." You (may have) heard it here first.

Story + maps = me happy! 

A lot of my research has to do with concepts of place and space and how the spaces we inhabit shape us and we shape them, and how all of this is represented in fiction. (I am working on my doctoral dissertation in North American literature and cultural studies, specifically focusing on comparative English-Canadian and Québécois fiction.) These ideas can seem very abstract, or even "obvious," to the uninitiated. ("You are writing an entire book about 'the North?'" Eyes glaze over.) I have always had trouble wrapping my mind around some philosophical concepts, and I am thankful for those scholars who have summed up and deconstructed Lefebvre, Soja and Bhabha for the rest of us.

It took me a long time to decide to pursue a Master's degree in literature because I struggled with thoughts that it wasn't "important enough." (I started in 2008 and finished my final oral exam in 2010, the day before my maternity leave with our first child began.) I always wanted to make a difference in the world, to do something of eternal value. I had a five-year break between finishing my Bachelor's degree (from U of T while living in Quebec, another story) and starting my Master. During those intervening years I got to travel and volunteer at two Bible schools in Austria and Greece, met the man of my dreams (and beyond what I had on my little checklist), got married and settled in Konstanz. I started, then stopped, another M.A. program that wasn't for me. (In Toronto, we used words and books to study political science, not the statistics and SPSS of the KN school of public policy and management! Numbers are not my friend.) Getting over the shock of not succeeding in my studies for the first time was a major life lesson in not putting my self-worth in what I do and achieve, but who I am in Christ.

I had often felt divided, pulled between a career in academia and serving in "ministry." I knew doing an M.A. would take time and hard work and thus would leave less time to be directly invested in other things. A desire to learn, research, study and write has been inside of me since I was an embryo (or, as we tell our son when he asks where he was when we got married, or when mommy lived in Canada, since I was "in God's thoughts, but not on Earth yet.")

So back in 2006-08, I took a long time to decide to do an M.A. in literature. My husband has always encouraged me, he has always supported me in chasing my dreams and fulfilling my potential. Finally, I found encouragement in Daniel's story. Yes, that guy with the lions, though not that part specifically. Daniel the man God used greatly in a foreign kingdom to have a place of influence in society, he did a B.A. in literature and cultural studies (check it out.) Good enough for an OT prophet, good enough for me. But before this epiphany, I struggled with thoughts that literature didn't "really matter." I mean, this isn't medicine, it isn't going to save someone's life. 

Or could it?

Could narrative save someone's life? Could telling a story, and telling it well, actually give hope to someone in the pit of despair? Actually resonate with a stranger on the other side of the planet and make them feel less alone? Could it shine light on the evils of forced sex slavery, motivate just one person to kick up a fuss, to spread awareness, to raise funds, to facilitate freedom for a victim? Could narrative literally save the life of a 13 year old girl who is at this very moment locked in a dirty room near Hamburg's port, handcuffed and brutalized up to 40 times a day?

Hot tears burn my eyes as I write these words but they must be written. I must tell their stories.

Freedom starts with us.

Join me in the fight against human trafficking, won't you? To learn more about the problem and see how you can be part of the solution go to the A21 Campaign, whose goal is abolish the injustice of human trafficking and sex slavery in the 21st century. They are on the ground in several European source and destination countries, working to rescue and rehabilitate victims as well as prosecuting perpetrators. Join us in spreading freedom in Europe. It isn't just happening “over there,” it happens here. In our city, our country. Freedom starts with us.