Emmanuel- God in our midst

Matthew 1:23 “Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel” (which means, God with us).

In Helsinki, I visited an exhibit of nativity scenes, based on Italian nativity scenes from the 17 and 18 hundreds.  At first, I was struck by the oddity of the anachronisms- women selling sausages, men discussing business in the street- all dressed in styles from a more modern time, and somewhere, in the midst of it all, the Holy Family. 

And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth. John 1:14

But the more I looked, and the more I pondered, the more I came to love the symbolism of it.  He was there, in our midst.  He is here, in our midst.  Many of the people in the scenes went about their daily lives, oblivious to the greatest of all miracles: God among us.  The greatest moment in history was happening, and they were unaware.  Others though, stopped what they were doing.  They came to adore, bringing offerings of everyday life- bread, apples, fish

It made me wonder, what if we remade these scenes, changed the characters to people we see about us every day?  What if we added ourselves to the scene?  Do I go about my daily life, so busy with normality that I forget to ponder the miracle this season reminds me of?  Has the idea of a God who dwells with us become so familiar to me that it has lost its mystery?  Or do I still pause in what I'm doing, and stop in awe at the manger, to wonder at the God who became flesh and dwelt among us?

May you see Jesus, Emmanuel, God with us, in your life this Christmas.  May you experience the wonder and the mystery of a God who humbled himself to become one of us. May you be like Mary, treasuring the miraculous in the midst of the ordinary, and pondering it in your heart.

"Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross." Philippians 2: 5-8

But he was wounded for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his stripes we are healed." Isaiah 53:5

Happy Thanksgiving!

Back in September, I was already starting to think about Thanksgiving.  Not celebrating Thanksgiving just wasn't an option, but singlehandedly hosting Thanksgiving dinner when I've never made a turkey before was a daunting task.  So when Alistair was just as excited by Thanksgiving as I was, we had a team and a goal- introducing one of our favorite holidays to friends from around the world.

Hosting Thanksgiving dinner is a big deal.  It's even more of a big deal in a foreign country where it can be tricky to find the ingredients you need.  Add to that living in student apartments without the space to host a large dinner and no car for transporting groceries, and you have a logistical puzzle.  But, where there's a will, there's a way.

A scouting trip to the closet major grocery store near my house revealed that turkey, pumpkin pie, sweet potato casserole and cranberry sauce could remain on the menu, as long as we were willing to make them from scratch.  Watergate salad (or what we call "green stuff" in my family) was a no go however.

An early Happy Thanksgiving email to my family on Thursday morning prompted me to look at how long I'd need to defrost our bird in the fridge if we were celebrating on Sunday.  I suddenly realized that the answer was I should start defrosting it now.  So, after my first class of the day I biked to the store and bought a 17 pound turkey.  While I've gotten better at balancing my bike with packages hanging from the handlebars, I don't think I'm up to the disequilibrium that something that heavy would cause, so lucky for me, the turkey just fit into my backpack.

Next on the to-do list was finding a venue.  Fortunately for us, all the student apartment complexes have "common rooms" that you can reserve.  So Alistair reserved a room and I swung by the student housing office on Friday afternoon to pick up the key.  When I got home Friday evening, I decided to stop in and scope out the room.  Much to my dismay, the key I was given didn't open the door.  I tried again.  I've been known to be slightly key-challenged, so maybe I was just doing something wrong?  Nothing.  Suddenly our whole plan seemed to be crashing in around me.  We had 17 people scheduled to show up on Sunday and it looked like we might not have a room.  I was imagining us sitting on the floor of my apartment, eating out of paper plates.  Not really the best Thanksgiving dinner scenario.

Since I was biking (again) on Friday and had bought poster board downtown, I'd asked a friend who happens to be a neighbor if he'd take it back with him on the bus.  So, when I called him to get the poster board from him I asked if he'd see if he had any more luck with the key than I did.  He didn't.  I realized that maybe the lady at the housing office had given me the wrong key, so we went off to see if we could find the other common room in the complex.  The exterior door there was open, and the housing office key let us into the common room.  My immediate relief was followed by disappointment.  The room was ugly, windowless, with a broken down pool table on the floor and not enough chairs to seat everyone.  To make it worse, the kitchen was also locked, and, you guessed it, the key didn't work to open it.

As I was mentally trying to come up with plan C, some random inspiration made my friend try his key in the kitchen door.  It opened.  Thoroughly confused, but glad at least to have access to a kitchen on the premises, I figured the rest of the details would work themselves out.  Another random moment of inspiration led us back to the first room where my friend's key worked on the outside door and the key from the housing office worked on the inside door and voila, we finally had a (somewhat) better place.  At least there was enough seating and no broken pool table.

Prepping sweet potato casserole on Saturday 

So, Saturday back at my place, Alistair and I, with the help of our friend Paulina, made all the desserts and prepped some of the other food.  And Sunday morning, at the early hour of 7 am (made even earlier by the fact the sun doesn't even rise til 9:30 here right now) Alistair showed up and (using my friend's borrowed key) we let ourselves in to the common room and started cooking away.

Necessity is the mother of invention

The turkey came out perfect.  An olive oil bottle worked just fine for mashing potatoes since we didn't have a potato masher.  My cranberry sauce gelled.  In short, all the disasters that could have happened didn't.  Thanksgiving was an amazing success.  None of our guests had celebrated an American Thanksgiving before and almost none of them had eaten a whole turkey.  They all waited anxiously for it to come out of the oven.

The two American co-hosts and our perfect turkey

As we shared about our American traditions and history- pumpkin pie and breaking wishbones, the Macy's day parade and football, Pilgrims and the Wampanoag Indians- it was so fun to see people experiencing Thanksgiving for the first time.  We went around the table and all shared one thing we were thankful for.

Guests from around the world experiencing their first American dinner (in Finland).

For me, I was thankful for friends.  Thankful that despite being far from home and family, I was surrounded by people who I could share Thanksgiving with.  That's what I said.  I was also thankful for this plate of food and pulling off Thanksgiving without a single mishap.

Of course, Thanksgiving dinner isn't complete without dessert.  "Let me put this in perspective" I told our guests.  "This year at home, there were only 8 people at my family's Thanksgiving celebration, and I think they had 4 different desserts.  This is the one day a year when you can eat as much dessert as you want and not feel guilty.  Please, try everything.  We want you to."  Alistair and I weren't sure if our 2 apple pies, 2 pumpkin pies, 1 chocolate mousse pie, brownies, and ice cream was going a bit overboard.  But hey, there's no such thing as too much food at Thanksgiving.  

An apple pie and a chocolate mousse pie, made by me with some help from Paulina

Some of my favorite people in Finland.  :)

Now the leftovers are mostly eaten, other than some turkey soup that is saved in my freezer.  And I'm looking forward to next year's Thanksgiving, but not sure who I'll host it with since Alistair won't be here next year.  Any American friends want to come host Thanksgiving with me next year?

The American Dinner!

Rewind to September.  The International Students organization hosted a Finnish dinner.  Somehow my innocent offer to "help cook" at the next International student dinner transformed into "plan, shop, cook, and host" when another American also offered to help cook.

Which explains why one Saturday morning found us in a common kitchen, surrounded by towers of canned goods. I was chopping a mountain of onions while Alistair browned onions and Paulina scrubbed potatoes.  "What can I do?" Jonathan asked.  "You can open the crushed tomatoes" I said, searching for my pocket knife.  I knew I'd left it somewhere and none of us had brought a real can opener.  Fifteen cans later, plus 15 cans of kidney beans and pounds of green peppers, onions, and ground beef later, our chili for 50 was simmering on the stove.


As it simmered, we hung stars from the ceiling, rearranged furniture, and set the tables.  Five o'clock and the place was decorated and the food almost ready.  We were ahead of the game.  I slipped home to change and got back in time to help with the appetizers.




As guests came through the door I stuck a name on their back, giggling a bit at some of the mismatches.  "Oh, this one's perfect for you" as I stuck Princess Jasmine on a very decidedly not princess like man's back.  They were instructed to figure out who they were by asking questions, and then to find the person who had their match.  It was our cleverly designed ploy to require guests to mingle.  And it worked.  :)  The food helped too.  Chips and dip and pigs in a blanket seemed like perfect American party foods, but we had to supplement them with the most quintessential American ingredient we could think of: peanut butter.

The quintessential American ingredient in 2 very school child forms  

The room, ready for guests.

Mingling

Once everyone had found their partner, we lined them up for contra-dancing.  Alistair (my token American friend and partner in crime, or event planning, whichever the case might be) also happens to play the fiddle.  So, he explained the steps as we tried to maneuver around each other in a room most certainly not designed for 25 couples to dance in.  We had to restart from the beginning multiple times before we made it through the first set of steps, but when we managed it successfully, the whole group spontaneously burst into applause.

Some of the awesome people who helped

Ice thoroughly broken now, we sent people in to find a seat and served chili and baked potatoes.  I found an empty seat at a table of French speakers from France, Switzerland and Belgium to eat some chili, then got up to help get dessert ready.  While pancakes aren't traditionally a dessert, everyone loves them, and most of the rest of the world eats crepes, not our fat, puffy, wonderful pancakes.  To make things even better, we served them with maple syrup and whipped cream.  I joined a table with people from Azerbaijan, Chile, Romania and Albania for the dessert course.  And may or may not have finished off all the whipped cream in the bowl when the pancakes were gone. . .

Disconnect

I've been wondering lately why I'm having such a hard time getting back into the rhythms of student life.  I was always an excellent student, but here I feel less motivated.  I'm doing my homework, but it doesn't seem to have the relevance or importance it did back when I was an undergraduate student. My thesis topic (ever elusive but always on my mind) inspires me, and I know, for me, my thesis is serious.  Everything else, sort of feels ancillary

We had an interesting lecture the other day, on three types of learning: knowledge acquisition, participation, and knowledge creation.  Knowledge acquisition is traditional classroom learning: an "expert" with knowledge passes that knowledge on to someone without knowledge.  In it's most basic form, it's seen as a banking system of education-knowledge is "deposited" into your mind by the one who possesses it.  You are passive, receiving knowledge.

Participation is, as its name implies, more participatory in nature.  It's a social method of learning. As you work alongside an "expert, you learn through doing, observation, experimentation, and failure.

Knowledge creation goes a step beyond that.  You improvise and create new ideas based on your knowledge and experience.

These don't have to be a continuum of learning, taken in order.  However, each level has an increasing amount of intellectual challenge involved.  Lately, I've been feeling a disconnect between what I'm doing here in class and what I want to do later in life, and as I listened to this lecture, I realized why.

For the past 7 years, I've mostly been learning at the participation and knowledge creation levels.  Knowledge acquisition has usually been in response to a real life problem.  And now I'm back in school.  I've become unaccustomed to learning and problem solving separated from real world problems.  When my former "stimulus" for learning was "we don't have a reading curriculum" and the outcome was a 60 page organized manual with reading and writing ideas written in my second language, suddenly, "read a scholarly article and write a summary and critique of the methodology" or even, "compare one facet of 2 different school systems in 6-8 pages" just doesn't seem as critical.

Here's to hoping that while I feel disconnected from the "real world" and real world problems, I'll be able to see how my time here will help me be more effective in meeting some of those problems when I leave the ivory tower of academia.

Adventures with my bike

I was in the forest, following the 7 year old on the bike path.  The hill was steep and his little brother struggled up it.  I was tagging behind, ostensibly not to lose the kids- after all, watching them was my responsibility- but the honest truth was that this hill was about as hard for me as it was for the four year old.  He stood up on the pedals, leaning in to keep going.  

When I was a kid, we lived at the top of a steep, gravel drive way.  It wasn't ideal for riding bikes.  So I never really progressed to the "look Mom!  No hands!" stage of bike riding.  I'm getting there now, but balancing while standing is a feat I still haven't mastered.  

Despite that, my bike has become one of my new best friends.  The fog creeps over the river in the morning, and frost paints the bushes white.  My ears freeze, especially since I misplaced my hat.  I steer to avoid the potholes, and smile as I pick up speed on the hill right before I reach campus.  My half hour walk has been shortened to a just over 10 minute bike ride.  

On a drizzly day, when I finally arrive I'm slightly damp, my hair frizzy.  Riding in the rain is hard.  I blink, trying to keep the raindrops out of my eyes.  I momentarily consider wearing swimming goggles when biking in the rain, and then wonder if maybe a hat with a visor might work just as well and not look quite as strange.

We laughingly call ourselves a "bike gang" when there's a group of us together.  We ride through the town square in the dark.  It's empty this late at night, and the group of us all headed home in the same direction call back and forth to each other as we ride through the silent streets.  There's something magical about riding at night.  When everything around you is obscured, you feel like you're gliding, almost flying in the dark.

Unfortunately, with the cold comes ice and snow, and I think I'm still too new to the world of cycling to brave those conditions on the way to school each morning.  The bus might just replace my bike for a season.  But for now, in these last few days of fall, I'm still enjoying this new bicycle life style. 

Falling off the tight rope

I used to think of God's will as a tight rope: you're either on it, or off it, and staying balanced is a treacherous journey of discernment, where any mis-step will send you tumbling.  And if you want God's best for your life, you have to work to get back on that tightrope, because it stretches away into God's perfect future for you, and there you are, on the ground, stuck with plan B.

When I'm thinking this way, decisions are terrifying.  If I don't discern God's will correctly and instead I (take this job, move to this place, date this person) and it wasn't REALLY God's will, then I'll be stuck in plan B.  I start to stress, on one hand, that I will fail God, and on the other that he will fail me.  If I choose wrong, he won't be able to use me as he planned to.  Life will go on, but I won't meet that one person who was going to tell me about that particular mission's organization that would have been the perfect fit for me and I would have changed hundreds of children's lives.  He also won't be able to bless me as he planned to.  I also won't meet that amazing man that God had planned for me to marry.  Oops.  I would have met him at that other job.  Or in a different country.  Or at a different school.  Too bad I heard God wrong, and now I'm stuck with plan B.  Unless of course, I can figure out where I misheard, back track as it were, and get myself back on the tight rope.  Then maybe I can still have the "best" plan.

How small my view of God can be, and how large my view of myself.  Did I really think that I could fail God?  That me, one tiny, insignificant creation in a world of 7 billion, could make a choice that would upset the course of God's divine plan?  That with my one decision, I would lessen his ability to work through me?  Do I really think that God's grace is so small that it only covers me when I'm following down a pre-made path that I can't see and nothing but faith and guesswork can ever make out?  Do I not know that God is everywhere?  That he redeems all our mistakes, is with us always, even to the end of this age, and lavishes his love on us?

I'm reworking my understanding of God's will.  When God put Adam and Eve in the garden, he gave them choices and parameters.  "And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, “You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.” (Genesis 2:16 & 17) I'm beginning to think, that in much the same way, God gives us choices and parameters now.  "He has showed you, O man, what is good; and what does the LORD require of you, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God?" (Micah 5:7)  “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment.  And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself." (Matthew 22: 37&38)  Does my decision flow from my love of God?  Does it demonstrate love to my neighbor?  Is it a decision that embraces love, mercy, and justice?  Because if it does, I think it's a decision that I'm free to make without agonizing whether or not it's God's will.  Perhaps that seems obvious, but for me, it hasn't always been.  It still isn't.  I feel like I need a special confirmation, a special blessing, in order to proceed.  Maybe because of my personality.  Maybe because of things I was taught in church (until you have "perfect peace" that a decision is from God, you should continue to seek him. . . how does that even work if a decision has a deadline and not making a decision is the same as deciding "no"?).  Maybe because of verses like this one, "And your ears shall hear a word behind you, saying, “This is the way, walk in it,” when you turn to the right or when you turn to the left." (Isaiah 30:21).

As I've been trying to come to a Biblically sound view of what it means to seek God's will, I can't really bring to mind any soul-searching, agonizing times of desperately seeking God's will in the Bible (Jesus, at Gethsemane is the only time that comes to mind.  And there he already kenw God's will, but was asking if there was any other way, that's a bit different than evaluating options and choosing the one God approves).  Yes, there are MANY times when God clearly speaks and directs someone to do something specific.  And there are times when God's people seek guidance for how to overcome specific problems.  But overall, I see a principle of honoring God with our lives and moving forward trusting that he will guide. "The steps of a man are established by the LORD, when he delights in his way; though he falls, he shall not be cast headlong, for the LORD upholds his hand" (Psalm 37:23 & 24).  If you search the Bible with the term "God's will", you'll find that often it relates to general principles (it is his will for us to be holy, to give thanks, to be sanctified) or a general calling (it was his will for Paul to be an apostle).  Rarely is it written about a specific circumstance, and if it is, it isn't generally something that needs to be carefully discerned, but more likely revealed through circumstances (Paul writing, "I will come back if it is God's will." in Acts 18:21).

I've been trying to find out what the early church father's wrote about decision making and while my search has been cursory so far, I haven't really turned up much of anything.  And I'm wondering if this is the reason why, "increased control over one's own life- problems of choice- are typically upper-class phenomena in the previous generations" (Life Stories of Social Change J. P. Roos) Until recently, "discerning God's will" wasn't something that your average person had much cause to do.  All the major life decisions where it's easy to worry about making the wrong choice, were choices they didn't even truly have to make.  Your father was a farmer, you were a farmer.  You were apprenticed to someone as a child, that became your trade.  You were a woman, you would marry, bear children and keep house.   Even "choices" like marriage were less of a choice when marriage was a much more practical arrangement and much less of the romantic attachment it is seen as today.  So if they could take those steps without fearing that they would somehow unknowingly be disobedient to God, I think we can probably do the same. 

I'm not suggesting we not pray, and seek God's will.  I just think that maybe, just maybe, God is more interested in us becoming transformed into his image than he is with creating prescribed paths for each one of us that we have to figure out.  And I'm confident that my God can transform me anywhere, and use any circumstance for his glory and for my good.  So, I'm beginning to say sometimes, after praying and seeking God, "maybe this right now, is a choice God is allowing me to make, and it's all right to choose any of these options"  But it's hard to do.  Even as I realize that my decisions shouldn't be made in fear because "Perfect love casts out fear"I find myself returning to the "comfort" of old ways of thinking.  Discerning God's will doesn't require me to make a decision- it just requires me to hear God's voice.  He chooses, I obey. There's safety in that, despite the fear of "mishearing".   But choosing, somehow that's a bit scarier.  But there's joy and freedom in that too.  So for now, I'm trying to learn to walk the tightrope with more confidence, no longer fearing that I can fall off and "lose" God's will for my life (as long as I'm not in rebellion to what his word reveals), and rejoicing in the truth that "all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose." (Romans 8:28).  It's not MY choices that keep me on that tight rope after all.  It's the glorious grace of my wonderful savior. 

The me that I'm becoming

Today, I made myself arepas for breakfast, and then sat and read my Spot books (in Finnish) while I ate.  There was something about that juxtaposition of cultures that got me thinking.  Because for me, making and eating an arepa is more than just cooking and eating.  It's an act of identifying with the Colombian "side" of my identity, connecting with friends far away, remembering- learning to make arepas for the asado (cook out) we had in La Calera with Bibi, the laughter in the kitchen at Luz y Vida as we made breakfast for 30,  the open bag of harina pan that Alex used to pat his arepas into shape, listening to Edwin and his brother and cousin discuss politics around the breakfast table, making arepas rellenas for dinner with Andreina when she came to visit me in the States.

And I realize how much my time in Colombia changed me. Not just in ways that are easy to explain, like memories, and eating new foods.  But things that are so much harder to see, or even for me to identify.  I see the world differently.  I have more than one way of doing things depending on where I am and who I'm with.  My values have shifted.

And now, I'm learning a new language, in a new country, with a new culture. Somewhere in a powerpoint this week, I saw these sentences: "You can't learn a language without learning the culture, and you can't learn a culture without learning the language"  I'd agree, and I'd add that you can't learn a language and culture and remain the same.

My favorite poem pretty much says the same thing-

Aprender el inglés/Learning English  by Luis Alberto Ambroggio

Vida 

Para entenderme 

Tienes que saber español 

Sentirlo en la sangre de tu alma.

Si hablo otro lenguaje

Y uso palabras distintas

Para expresar sentimientos que nunca cambiarán

No sé 

Si seguiré siendo 

La misma persona

Life 

to understand me 

you have to know Spanish 

feel it in the blood of your soul.

If I speak another language

And use different words

For feelings that will always stay the same

I don’t know 

If I’ll continue being 

The same person

And that's what I wonder- who will I be when my time here is done?  How will Finland and everything I do and see and experience and learn here change me?

The End of Euphoria

I'm taking a course on multicultural education this semester since it is one of my absolutely all time favorite topics.  It's interesting to read about students adjusting to school in a new culture since I'm experiencing that adjustment at the same time.  In today's reading, one section was about stages of cultural adaptation.  There's generally a period of euphoria, followed by a period of culture shock, followed by a period of adaptation.  

I definitely experienced the euphoria (or, as I've seen it referred to elsewhere, the honeymoon stage).  

But there's always an end to euphoria.  Life happens.  It's not all a vacation, and sometimes "different" loses its charm when you're no longer on vacation and you can't do things the way you're used to.  So right now, as the semester begins, I'm experiencing culture shock.  The Finnish system of higher education is decidedly different from the US system, and as of right now, I'm having a little bit of trouble coming to terms with that.  First of all, there's the schedule.  This week, I have 13.5 hours of class scheduled, next week, only 7.5.  We're 3 weeks into the semester already, and one of my classes still hasn't met.  Even classes that follow a set schedule meet in different classrooms on different days of the week.  All of that means it's pretty impossible to get into a routine and if I ever lose my day-timer I'm in deep trouble because I do not have 15 weeks of different class schedules memorized.  

And then, there's the classes themselves.  In some way they're a lot like American classes- lectures with power points and hand-outs, classroom discussions.  But there is one noticeable difference- the only class I received a syllabus in was the class taught by a visiting American professor.  Assignments (which so far have been ungraded) are haphazardly mentioned at the end of class, "oh yes, and send me a half page, or maybe one page, write up of your possible research questions.  Maybe you can talk about the methodology you'll use, and if you have the time to do any research you might share something about the articles" was more or less one of my assignments.  

And what's fascinating to me about it, is that the Finnish viewpoint is "we're treating you as adults, responsible for your own education," but from my viewpoint, it's just the opposite.  A clear syllabus with a schedule of what assignments are due and when makes me responsible and able to do the work given to me independently.  I can work ahead, or choose to procrastinate, or decide which weekend would be a good one to go to Sweden since there are no tests or papers due the next week.  As it is now, I feel completely dependent on the teacher and unable to make choices and control my educational environment.  

I think, as I adjust, it won't be so bad.  Maybe expectations aren't clear and assignments aren't graded because this is about the learning process right now, not the outcome.  The professors genuinely don't care what exactly I turn in as long as I'm engaging with the material, processing what we are covering, and demonstrating that in some way.  So, if I can get used to the mental unease of not knowing what's expected, I think I'll be able to embrace that aspect of my education here.  I have, after all, always been a rather self-guided learner.  What makes me nervous though, is that eventually I do have to prove the learning outcomes and I get the feeling my entire grade comes from the final exam (or written work, in one or 2 classes).  And that makes me nervous, because I'm used to having time to calibrate professors expectations to make sure that my work adheres to their standards.  Oh well.  Time to stop worrying, because worrying never changed anything.  I'd be better off studying Finnish or reading some journal articles instead.  :)

This quiet corner of the world

It's the stillness that amazes me, the way I'm only 2 miles from the heart of downtown, and yet within a 10 minute walk, I've entered a different world.   I set out, armed with my incomplete map, headed to a new destination.  I never know beforehand quite what to expect- a narrow line winds it's way across the map.  I follow it.  It starts off as a country road, wide enough for two cars, but nobody passes me while I'm on it.  As I continue, it narrows down, it's just wide enough for one car now.  And then suddenly, with no explanation at all, it's nothing but a bike path, or a walking trail.  And then, just as suddenly, you come out of the forest, or take a turn, and you've encountered civilization again.  It was never far away, but with nothing but the river, trees, and wheat fields, it's easy to forget.

There's a sense of adventure as I ride my bike.  I feel like I'm boldly setting off to explore uncharted territory.  As I enter the woods, I can't help but think of Little Red Riding Hood.  It's dark amongst the pine trees, and I can imagine a wolf lurking just out of sight.  I don't think wolves live around here though, just some GIANT hares.  (As in up to 30 inches long.  In comparison an average cat is 18 inches long, not counting the tail)

I took a walk one Sunday, just to ramble.  I walked past a family farm where a dad was lifting up his toddler to pet a horse.  The road ended, and the path climbed into the woods, and then split, one side continuing through the woods, the other down towards the river.  I walked between fields of wheat as cyclists and joggers occasionally passed.  Close to the river, I spread a blanket, ate an apple, and drifted off to sleep while reading a book in the sun.

The really cool thing about language acquisition

My new hobby is reading Spot books.  You know, Spot Goes to School, Spot Can Count, Spot Bakes a Cake.  They expose me to the sort of highly contextualized language it's hard to find naturally when you're an adult, and it's highly contextualized language that aids in language acquisition.  I know this; after all, I taught ESL and studied second language acquisition.  At the same time, I feel slightly ridiculous reading Spot books to myself (even more so when I sit down to read them in the library and the little kids around stare at me with open curiosity.)  After all, I haven't (at least not yet) read through them with a dictionary to figure out what the unknown words mean.  I'm not taking notes, or even quizzing myself on vocabulary.  Am I really learning anything?

Then, today, I had a moment of epiphany.  I want to make banana bread.  In my mind the banana bread was already baked and ready, and I was going to share it with my Finnish roommates (in reality, I didn't have enough ripe bananas or vanilla, and I didn't feel like going out in the rain for them).  We're often not around at the same time, so I was mentally composing a note to go with the banana bread- hmmm, how could I write it in Finnish?  I decided the easiest thing would just be to write "banana bread for everybody¨ in Finnish.  I know banana, bread, and everybody in Finnish, but I really wasn't sure how to write "for".  I decided the "lle" ending after everybody would probably do the trick, but then I wondered why I thought that.  I'm pretty sure I've never learned that in class.  Maybe I was wrong, I decided, or maybe I'd just figured it out intuitively by hearing it somewhere.  I checked to see what google translate had to say, and wonder of wonders, it agreed with me!  (of course, it's notoriously bad for Finnish-English translation, so it might be wrong.)

It wasn't until later that it struck me- I learned the construction without realizing it by reading Spot Bakes a Cake.  In it, they bake a cake for father. And guess what, father had the "lle" ending when they baked the cake for him.  And to me, that's the really cool thing about language acquisition.  Every time I muddle through a (grammatically incorrect) encounter at the bank or asking for directions, or trying to buy a phone card, I wonder- how am I even learning anything through this?  I'm just using what I already know.  But as we use what we know, we reach out and understand a bit more, and internalize a bit more, until, some day, hopefully, I'll realize I'm not just picking up words here and there, but getting the gist of things, and then later, I'll even follow full sentences.  And it's such a slow process that we don't even realize it's happening most days, it's only when we look back that we can see progress.

Celebrating progress

I've made a deal with myself that I will attempt Finnish in all public places before using English and that asking "Do you speak English?" in Finnish does not count.  (Of course, I've already broken my own rule, but I'm doing pretty well most of the time.)

Today at the bank, I was quite proud of myself.  I made a deposit and paid my rent all in Finnish! As I stood in line, waiting for a teller, I recited to myself what I thought I should say.  I was wishing for my dictionary but had to settle on my bank card giving me the needed info.  I realized that it was probably a safe bet that tili was the word for account since my account number was listed after the word tilinumero.  I must have been right, because the bank teller seemed to understand me.  I think I smiled all through the transaction, which the lady at the desk must have found odd, because in general, Finns don't smile very much, and really, what is there to smile about when filling in paperwork at the bank?  But, I was smiling because I'm communicating!  My Finnish was far from perfect (and as I replay what I said in my head, I'm amazed she even understood me- I know at the very least that I said I wanted to "buy" rent instead of "pay" rent.), but perfection is not the goal.  Communication is.  And that my friends, is being achieved, one baby step at a time!

The Hero and the Dream

What if I developed a research based family reading program to target comprehension skills and motivation to read?  What if I worked with authors and publishers to make quality children's literature in Spanish available and affordable?  What if I networked with the hundreds of already existing after-school programs that work with kids in poor neighborhoods all over Latin America so that they could increase the effectiveness of their tutoring/home work help time?  What if I did all of that together? Could I?  Would it make a difference?

Because that is, right now, my still germinating dream.  I'm not sure on the details, and it's big enough to make me think that maybe, just maybe, I should dream smaller, reach for more attainable goals.  I start to doubt, not only myself, but that one person can make a measurable change on more than a micro scale.

And then, I ran into Gezelius.  Not literally, of course.  Johannes Gezelius was a Bishop here in Turku in the 1600s that I learned about as I did research for the paper for my history class.  He single handedly wrote textbooks, founded a paper mill and a printing press, made school reforms, and started a church-based system of popular education.  His primer was used here in Finland for 150 years.

His story encouraged me.  He had similar motivations, and in some ways, even faced similar issues.  And the results to his life's work are still evident today.

I have no grand schemes of being famous and influential enough that someone will write a history paper about me 400 years from now.  But I do hope that, whether my dream morphs over the next few years, or stays the same, I'll pursue it and see results that last.

Sunny Summer Sunday

Sunday, I had a list:  Finnish homework, history paper, grocery shopping, church at 4.  Finnish homework was done, lunch eaten, and I looked out the window.  The sky was blue, not a cloud in sight.  It was too pretty to stay inside, let alone worry about lists.

I put on a sundress- after all, I probably wouldn't be getting many more chances to wear one here in the cold north, and headed to the riverfront walking path, stopping to take photos as I went.

Summer's Last Wish

Opposite the cathedral, the walking path continues along the river through downtown Turku.  When I reached the public library, I made a detour inside.  Browsing their English section makes me happy- volumes of unknown friends, waiting to be discovered.  Saramago's Blindness checked out on their self-serve scanner, I headed back out to see what I could see.

Turku Cathedral

Beautiful architecture

 Such a perfect day deserved an ice cream cone, and besides, I needed to practice my Finnish.  The little things in life- like ordering in Finnish and having the cashier respond in Finnish- make my day.  It was almost time for church, so I went off in search of the building.  I found it 15 minutes earlier than the service began, and St. Michael's beckoned only a few blocks away.  I hurried over to snap a few photos while the sky was still a perfect blue, then headed back to the International Service.

Ice cream by the Aura River

St Michael's Church

I didn't realize how much I'd missed church until I was there, with my brothers and sisters, worshipping our Savior.  The Christian faith was meant to be lived in community, and until Sunday, I hadn't had that here, so to be reminded I'm not alone here was a blessing.  It was a little congregation- I don't think there were more than 20 of us, but everyone was so friendly and welcoming.  I love when you walk into a church and it feels like home.  I stayed and chatted after the service til nearly 7, when I gave my number to one of the women I'd been chatting with and saw I'd missed a text from a friend- they were meeting at 6, did I want to join them?  Oops!  I called him back, and fortunately they were only a few blocks away, having a picnic by the river.

As we caught the last rays of summer sunshine, a hot air balloon drifted overhead.  I don't think I'd ever seen one so low before.  We could hear the roar of the flame as they lifted higher and see them waving to us.  I just might have to add "ride in a hot air balloon" to my list of things to do while I'm here, and fortunately for me, I've got the website right here in the photo.

By nine o'clock it was a bit too chilly to stay outside, so we headed back to Nancy and Chisako's where the night would not have been complete without a multi-national singing of "Finlandia" accompanied by ukulele.

I couldn't have asked for a better day. 

And it's one, two, three strikes you're out. . .

Today I played Finnish baseball.  If you know me at all, you know that's stepping outside my comfort zone.  Sports and I have a long term enmity, that only slightly improved in Colombia, and pretty much only in relation to soccer.

But, learning the game was part of the social agenda, and who wants to sit at home by themselves on a sunny Friday afternoon anyway?  So, off to the park I went.

Baseball is one of the few sports that I know enough of the rules to that I can actually play the game, so I was feeling confident that at least it wouldn't be too confusing.  I was in for a surprise.  Chisako, a student from Japan, was an exchange student here before. "The balls are like tennis balls" she told us.  We all looked at her skeptically.  "Ok, maybe not", she back pedaled.  When we got to the field though, we found out she was right- the balls look a lot like tennis balls, heavier though, and without the bounce.  The catcher's mitt is different too.  We warmed up with a bit of throwing and catching, nothing too surprising there, but then, as our instructor got us ready to start batting, the first really big change caught me by surprise.  The pitcher stands right next to the batting mound and pitches straight up.  You hit the ball on it's way back down.  It sounds particularly easy, and it is easier than regular pitching in a baseball game, but the complexity of timing the horizontal movement of the bat with the vertical movement of the ball was a bit beyond my eye-hand coordination (or mental physics ability)

With everyone more or less comfortable with batting, the instructor walked us over to the field and proceeded to explain how you have 3 swings at the ball, when you hit it you run, blah, blah, blah. . . I thought I knew what was coming. But no.  Drop the bat and run clockwise.  As in, towards third base, if this were American baseball.  All my preconceived notions of "baseball" were shaken.  And from there, it only got stranger.  At that point I was anticipating a reverse baseball diamond, but instead, you zig-zag up the field, then across the field, and finally home.

The Finnish baseball field

Sure I was probably going to run the wrong direction when it was my turn to bat, I tried to erase all my preconceived notions of baseball and remind myself that this was, after all, a different game.  In the outfield we learned of yet another difference from American baseball- if you catch the ball before it's touched the ground, the player gets sent back, but he doesn't get an out for his team.  As the other team hit, we learned more rules as we went along- the hitter isn't really happy with how far he hit the ball on his first swing?  Fine, he still has 2 more swings left.  Missed the ball all three times?  Run anyway and hope the pitcher doesn't get you out before you make first base.

Eventually I made it up to bat.  I frowned and rolled my eyes a bit as I stepped up to the plate.  Just another chance to show off my incompetence when it comes to sports.  But you know what?  Despite my initial lack of enthusiasm (and complete lack of self confidence), I actually had fun, scored some runs for my team, and learned something new about Finland.

Running home

Shutter Island revisited

Have you ever watched the movie Shutter Island?  It takes place on an island with a hospital for the mentally ill- it’s an eerie movie, that only gets creepier as it goes on.  That movie was in the back of my mind (and I wasn’t the only one) on our trip on Saturday. 

View from the ferry on the way to the island

It was a grey, rainy day. Umbrellas out, raincoats zipped, our group huddled around our guide. “We’re going to walk around 1 kilometer, along the way I’ll tell you the history of the island.” Other than our group and the one group behind us, the island was deserted. It’s an isolated place- to arrive, we’d driven by bus for about an hour outside of Turku, then taken a ferry to a slightly larger island, driven a bit further, and then taken a 25 minute ferry ride across the Baltic sea. We’d passed small islands, isolated summer cottages, pleasure boats. But that was now. In the 21st century. Back in the 17th century when Seili first became home to a leper colony, and later an insane asylum, Seili would have been an almost forgotten place, difficult to reach, and difficult to leave. Even into the 20th century it remained cut off form the outside world- news of Finland’s independence in 1917 didn’t reach Seili until weeks later.

“The original buildings that the patients slept in were made of wood, and none have survived”, our guide told us.  She proceeded to tell us a story of inhuman living conditions- rooms with tiny windows that were left closed so “patients” wouldn’t escape, a decreasing supply of wood on the island that meant freezing winters without enough wood to heat all the buildings thoroughly, patients who could be trusted to leave their rooms wandering the island naked in the summers since they weren’t provided with enough clothing and were saving what they did have for the cold winter.  No doctor lived on the island at this “hospital” for the mentally ill.  There were nurses, but the only treatments they provided were sedatives and “ice helmets” to calm the agitated. 

Our tour took us to a yellow, solid looking building where we stopped.  It was the more modern hospital, built to improve living conditions in the 1800s.  When Russia took over Finland in the 1800s, and the Czar received a report on the island, he ordered changes and a modern hospital building was constructed.  Life was slightly better for the patients there, but they were still often kept in solitary confinement in rooms just 1.8 meters by 2 meters square. 

As we walked further down the path through a copse of trees, our guide reminded us that Finland is rising from the sea.  There used to be a bridge connecting this side of Seili to the other, which used to be a distinct island.  From the early 1600s through the late 1700s, lepers were sent to live on the leper colony of Seili.  No one really knew anything about the disease, and it was feared, so lepers were exiled.  Food was delivered to them across the bridge, and there were church services on the island (lepers had to enter through a separate door and sat in a segregated area at the back so they wouldn’t come in contact with anyone else) but that’s the only contact the lepers ever had with the outside world.  People feared the disease so much that the bell tower was built detached from the church so that they could find someone willing to ring the bells without fearing contagion from leprosy.

The section of the church where the lepers sat.

The graveyard behind the church is a sad place.  Maybe a dozen wooden crosses tilt haphazardly.  All of those who died on the island, both lepers and mental patients, were buried here, but no one ever replaced the grave markers as they decayed over time.  Where a dozen crosses now stand, perhaps as many as 1000 people are buried. 

The feeling of melancholy and isolation are hard to shake.  It’s hard enough to imagine being one of the researchers living on the island today (they are conducting marine biology research and have converted the former mental hospital into a research station).  But it’s even harder to imagine living there centuries ago, surrounded by misery, and so distant from the outside world.  One of the directors of the mental institution went mad himself, and was committed as a patient by the courts to the hospital where he himself had one been the director.  He’s buried there in the graveyard, but out of deference to his former position, he’s buried with the staff and an iron cross bears his name.