January 6, 2011

Dear Diary,

"I talked to Ruth (vicar's wife) today about visiting India. All this made me think about what I want, and what I want is to travel. I want to be mobile and self sufficient. 


I want to see things that astound me and make me believe in things unseen. 


I want to swim in rivers, climb mountains, pray in temples, chat with strangers, sleep under the stars and witness a thousand sunsets on a foreign beach. 


I want to live simply and make friends all over the world. 

And I REALLY do want to see the whole world. I want to live with freedom. I want to be the kind of person who is fulfilled in what they do. Someone who wears bandanas like a badass and doesn't care what the world thinks. I want to cut my hair short and dye it pink. I want God to speak to me and be able to recognize his voice when he does. I want to LIVE. 

I'm tired of expectations, biological clocks, judgmental people... I'm tired of doubting myself - I love to write, who cares if I suck? I love it.


God, remind me that I CAN be a certain kind of person. Fill me with courage to make it happen, and contentment in the meantime..." 

Ever wonder what I do here?

So I realized recently I've never really given a detailed account of what I do here on a weekly basis. In the beginning I wanted this to be a sort of public diary about the daily things I'm doing. Instead, I've kind of used it as time to reflect on things vaguely and for that I am sorry. If you've been keeping up with me for a while you will know most of this I think, but for now here is a breakdown of what I do:



Monday - Wednesday




Working as a teachers assistant at a Primary School in our neighborhood. The school is 95% Pakistani Muslims, with some students speaking English as a second language.

Mon: Practice for the church choir we joined - I sang with them at the bereaved parents service I blogged a bout a few months ago.

Wed: A personal bible study with my 90 year old neighbor Betty.

Saleeka on our school trip to Whitby

Thursday

Christian
Photo by Marie Unruh

We run a "Kids Club" for local kids - mostly Slovakian kids who spend their time hanging around the streets.

Photo by: Marie Unruh

Spending time with elderly people at Great Horton UMC - playing games and serving tea.

Friday/ Saturday
Our free days to get involved in something that interests us. We've mostly used these days to get to know Bradford, visit with friends and build relationships here. We've also done other kinds of youth events on these days around West Yorkshire.

Sundays
We spend most of our day attending churches, including the 2 we are connected to here (St. Wilfrid's Anglican & Great Horton UMC)


If you asked me what I've enjoyed the most during my time here I don't know if I could pin point one thing; EVERYTHING has been rewarding. I think the greatest challenge, at the same time the greatest reward, has been working with children. I NEVER desired teaching before, but now I can see why there are so many dedicated teachers out there. Kids are amazing! They are always surprising me. Especially the kids at Lidget Green - they are growing up in so much tension. Can you imagine speaking english all day long, and learnng in a setting completely different to your culture and then going home and speaking an entirely different language? It blows me away the reposinbility these kids have to take on. A lot of the children at our school are the only english speakers in their family, so they are constantly having to be a translator for their parents. For me, working with Muslim children has been the greatest insight into Islam. Everyday after school they go to Madrasa (Islamic school) to learn the Qur'an. Then, the next day they come to school and tell me what they've learned. They understand things so simply... It makes me realize how cluttered I've made my life, and my faith. True, not questioing what you're taught is not always a good thing... but there is somthing to say for living from an orientation of faith rather than doubt.

I will miss this routine more than I can convey to you here...

Catching up...

Well heeeelllllooooo!!!

It's been a while since my last post and SO much has happened - I don't even know where to begin?!

Our team retreat to Ireland was fantastic! We started our trip in Belfast, where one of our partners (Tim Foley) took us around town and told us about the "troubles" and the peace work which has been done since the 20s. He even set up an appointment to talk to a current peace worker in the area. We also took the opportunity in Belfast to catch up with an American Mennonite couple living there for two years. The first night we were there they ordered some pizza for us, and for that we're eternally gratefull. I I don't know if I have mentioned this in previous blogs, but food here in Britain isn't the best. ESPESCIALLY the pizza! I don't know what goes wrong in the pizza kitchens of England, but I have not had one good slice of pizza on this island! So thank God Ireland had some kick butt pizza! Actually, for all I know it was mediocre at best... but to us it was like Italy in our mouths.

On the second day that took us on a long walk through the Catholic/Protestant neighborhoods. It was absolutley incredible walking through "martyr" memorials, old IRA check points and past the HUGE peace wall that seperates the different sides of the city seperated by denomination. (We signed it!) We spent 3 days altogether in Belfast before headin south to Dublin! Dublin was busy with people from all over the world walking along the Liffy and partying at Temple Bar. Marie and I were hoping to grab a Guiness while we were there, but we happened to go over Holy Week (week before Easter) so all the bars were closed! Can you believe it? The bars in Dublin closed! 

"Love Will Win" on Belfast peace wall

From Dublin we went on a 3 day trip through Southern Ireland - Kilkenny, Cork, Galway, Cliffs of Moher, Killarney, Blarney - all the way back to Dublin. From Dublin we took a bus to Ennis, where we stayed in the best Hostel in Ireland! We spent our last night at a pub listening to the most incredible Irish folk band.
From Shannon airport we flew to London! A few of our friend from Bradford met us and we all checked in to the London Mennonite center. I LOVE the mennonite center! Unfortunately they JUST sold it - but it is a massive house in Highgate with a full library, high ceilinged rooms, a full kitchen and a lovely back yard garden.  Mennonite a traveling through Europe stay there, but mostly the house is occupied by full time staff and volunteers. In any event, the place is beautiful and right next to the tube station so the black line took us straight into downtown London. For Marie's birthday on the 27th we did a self guided tour of Banksy work. If you're not familiar with Banksy, he/she is a spray paint artist who tags buildings all over London anonymously. Nobody has any idea who Banksy is, and he/she has been able to put up every peice of work without ANYONE witnessing it. We had a blast!

The next day was one I will NEVER forget - The Royal Wedding. 

It was the most amazing day... It sounds strange, but the crowds weren't overwhelming, everyone was so friendly, and we had a great spot on the Mall. Plus, I got to share it the friends I've made here. I feel so blessed.

Since then I've been back to school. I really missed the kids and it was fun telling them about the wedding and getting to hear about their breaks. I promise to post something about my time with school soon - ESPECIALLY more details about what I do here. I realized I haven't done a very good job of that. Recently a good friend asked me what it is I do here and 9 months in that's not a good thing...

I thought I'd add one more event -
This past week Marie, Louise (Methodist Pastor) and I went to Epworth, the home of John Wesley. It was absolutely incredible. The history was fascinating, and just knowing I was in the birth place of Methodism blew my mind. Our tour guide did a really good job of humanizing the Wesley's. he told us all the dirty little secrets about the family and all of the good they were still able to do. He kept saying how even though some of the parts of the Methodist story weren't the most ideal, if they didn't happen we wouldn't be where we are now. I realized if it wasn't for those quirky unlikely parts I wouldn't be where I am either. If John Wesley had never done his thing I would still be a Catholic, presumably not into spirituality, I wouldn't have heard about the Mennonites and therefore I wouldn't have come on this year. Funny how thing's work out...

The Wesley House

John Wesley's Bed Spread

Market Corner where Wesley gave some open air sermons

Field on a blue sky leaving Epworth

I deny the resurrection.

Today is Palm Sunday, the day we remember Jesus' triumphal entry into Jerusalem. This procession into the city on palms inaugurates what we call "Holy Week", or the last week of Jesus' life. During this last week: he says goodbye to his friends and washes their feet, he's betrayed by a friend and imprisoned, again he is betrayed by Peter and sent to death by crucifixion. On Good Friday he finally dies, alone and disconnected from God...

   

Around mid-afternoon Jesus groaned out of the depths, crying loudly, "Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani?" which means, "My God, my God, why have you abandoned me?" 

-Matthew 27: 46 (The Message)

It sounds like an ending, but three days later he comes back from the dead - alive in a new body (of sorts). He appears not only to his closest friends, but to hundreds of others, who upon seeing him back from the dead, believe he is the Son of God. 

According to Christians his resurrection has huge implications for the world. If Jesus truly died and brought himself back to life, well then he'd be the only person ever to do that! So what would this mean? I like how Bishop of Durham / Author N. T. Wright puts it: 

"The resurrection completes the inauguration of God's kingdom. . . . It is the decisive event demonstrating that God's kingdom really has been launched on earth as it is in heaven." "The message of Easter is that God's new world has been unveiled in Jesus Christ and that you're now invited to belong to it." "The point of the resurrection…is that the present bodily life is not valueless just because it will die…What you do with your body in the present matters because God has a great future in store for it…What you do in the present—by painting, preaching, singing, sewing, praying, teaching, building hospitals, digging wells, campaigning for justice, writing poems, caring for the needy, loving your neighbor as yourself—will last into God's future. These activities are not simply ways of making the present life a little less beastly, a little more bearable, until the day when we leave it behind altogether (as the hymn so mistakenly puts it…). They are part of what we may call building for God's kingdom."

According to Christians, Christs resurrection has as much to do about the Kingdom of Heaven on earth as it does with the Kingdom of God after we die. And this Kingdom is a way of life that calls for the redemption of all people back to their maker. For N.T. Wright this plays itself out through the pursuit of Justice, love and healing for the world. 

In my own words, I would say the resurrection is a way of living which affirms the unconditional love of God for the entire world. If this is true, than my life, not my creeds, would speak the truth of the resurrection. Reversely, if my actions didn't match my beliefs it would seem I actually don't believe them in the first place.

Therefore, I deny the resurrection. Here is a short video explaing my point from author/pastor Peter Rollins - a fellow resurrection denier. I thought it was appropriate since he's from Belfast and I'll be heading there tomorrow...

I Deny the Resurrection from Peter Rollins on Vimeo.

I'm sure there is some huge flaw in my thinking here... but this morning durring church I realized I totally agree with Peter. I'm just like those first Palm sunday worshippers; I hail Jesus as king and in the next moment condemn him. Sometimes I believe God is risen and live like it is so, and yet there are other times when I act as if God isn't alive in the people around me. So I become apathetic, selfish and even cruel...

Like Peter Rollins I deny the resurection everytime I refuse to serve my brother or sister, and I affirm the resurrection every time I love others like my God loved me. 

I'll be in Ireland this next week, then onto London for the Royal Wedding and finally back home to Bradford.

Until then... Grace and peace to you this Easter. He is risen!

English Lingo! Do you get it? I don't....

You know that really annoying person who lives in a foriegn country for a relatively short amount of time, and either returns with an accent or an enitrely new vocabulary? I do. I hate that person. There's actually a great episode of friends where they spoof this kind of imposter. The  episode starts with Pheobe and Monica impersonating their friend Amanda who just got back from living in England:

Monica: "Helloooo Monica daaaaarling, it's Amaaanda caaalling!" It's like give it a rest! You're from Yonkers, your last name is Boufemounteesy!!
Pheobe: "Helloooo Pheobe, sorry to catch you on your mobile." Well if you didn't want to catch me on my MOBILE you shouldn't have called me on my MOBILE!!!


You know these kids of fonies. Their the student who spent a month in Italy, and now ends every phone conversation with "Chow!" Please, your not fooling anyone...

My biggest fear (that's a hyperbole) was to become one of these people. At the beginning of the year I was determind to keep my American English! However, it became clear very early on that if I didn't start speaking Bristish English, the kids wouldn't have any bloody idea of what I'm talking about! So now I'm one of them, and I will probably one of them when I get back to the states - it's a habit now. So, in the hopes that y'all won't make fun of me when I get home... and so you can hear a bit of what the Brits across the pond call a language, I have listed a collection of British lingo. This is my personal list, I didn't steal it off a website, these are all the words I've learned since being here.

Feel free to giggle and then include them in your daily conversation.
(Some of these terms are local to Bradford. Infact, Sourthern England - London and all that- use a lot of our pronunciations and vocab)

British English                                Translation                                                       "Example"

I can't be bothered                        I'm too lazy to do anything right now
Oh bless...                                 Oh you...       "Look, poor Luke has his head stuck in a jar, oh bless..."
Footy  / Football                           Soccer
Cheers! / Ta!                                Thanks!
Asian                                            Middle Eastern
Oriental                                        Chinese/Japanese/Malaysian, etc....
a rubber                                        Eraser                             "Use your rubber to rub it out!"
a plaster                                        Band aid
Dinner                                           Lunch
Tea                                               Drinking tea / another name for dinner
Sugar paper                                  Construction paper
Skittles                                         Bowling pins
Private school                               Boarding school
Public school                                Private school
State school                                  Public school
Takeaway                                    Takeout
In'n-it                                      Right?! (Asian saying)      "Steven Jared is Liverpool's best player, in'n-it!"
Trolly                                           Shopping cart
Buggey                                        Stroller
Nappy                                          Diaper
Have a go...                                 Try it yourself
Ginnel/snicket                              Narrow path
Wellies                                         Rain boots
Queue                                          Line
Chips                                           Large french fries
Crisps                                          What we call chips
brilliant! smashing!                      Fantastic! Excellent!
Scheme                                        Plans
Bits                                              Parts
Top-up                                       to fill up / add money to            "I need to top-up my phone card"
Conkers                                       Horse chestnuts
Lorry                                           Truck
Twitten                                        Footpath
Chav                                           Equal to a redneck or "trailer trash"
Plait                                             Braid
Brass                                           Cold
Pip-pip/ toodle pip/ cheerio         Forms of saying goodbye
Fop                                             Well dressed, pretty boy
Full of flannel                             A flatterer
Rubbish                                      Trash
Cot                                              Baby's Crib
Posh                                            rich, fancy
Fancy dress                                 Costumes
Dobber                                       One who tattles
Grass                                          to tattle
Sledge                                        Sled for snow
Strop                                          Trantrum
Chuck-a-wobbly                        another phrase for tantrum
Ladybird                                    Ladybug
Take the piss                             Make fun of someone
Snogging                                   Making out
Proper                                        Really                                                      "It was proper raining!"
Well nice                                   really nice
Knackered                                 Exhausted
Gip                                            Vomit
Gunged                                     Slimed

Hope for Japan

In Edinburgh there is a famous meeting point on the Royal Mile, where for hundreds of years people have gathered to hear a caller deliver the news. But for as long as this mini-news-tower has been around, it has had one obvious flaw: the news is 3 days old. It's kind of like the Newspapers of today, it's yesterdays news (or in this case, yesterdays old news). The 3 day delay used to be because the news was carried from London and would, of course, take 3 days. Today it's 3 days late just to observe tradition. 


If you can imagine how a person in 18th Edinburgh may have felt about their knowledge of world events, than you have a clearer picture of my feelings. You'd think with 5 BBC channels running 24-7 commercial free news, I'd have some idea what's going on around me. Sadly, if work isn't taking up most of my time, Teen Mom is (if you don't know what Teen Mom is, than you're not wasting your life). Long story short, I rarely catch the news. Recently I've been trying to stay informed. The first piece of world news to reach us, as it happened, was unfortunately the earthquake in Japan. I'm sure back home you're all up-to-date on the situation. I'm learning now there are all sorts of problems associated with it to worry about, most prominently the exposed radiation towers in Sendai. 


So, while I have no new thoughts or information to report on the situation, I thought I would share a brief email exchange with a Japanese friend I made here. I enjoy reading her emails for their oddly formal phrases and awkward english. Im pretty sure she just puts Japanese into Translator.com or something, lol. 


Her name is Nobuko and she is a Peace Studies student at the University of Bradford. Apparently there are only something like 5 masters programs for Peace Studies in the world, and Bradford is one of the best. While the students are from all over the world, and of every different political and religious background, many of the ones I have met have been Christians. They make up most of the non-traditional church service I go to called "Soul Space." Nobuko and I first met a couple months ago on the Soul Space retreat. Nobuko is Christian, a minority in her country, which is mostly made up of Shinto Buddhists.  You can see her in the random video I took that weekend. Since then we have been exchanging emails. After I heard about the quake I wrote her just to make sure her family was ok. 


She wrote: "Fortunately, all of my relatives are in safe area at that moment. But many Japanese are still suffering from their broken lives, so I just keep on praying for unbroken hope arriving on their darkness."


What a powerful statement. And the way she wrote it (intentionally or not) forms a picture in my brain; like some kind of bird flying above a destroyed city... and instead of flying on to some other landscape, the bird swoops down and makes its home among the wreckage.  And this bird is light and peace and hope. The arrival of a hope that says, "This. What has and is happening here; is not the end. Trust me."


A few days after the email I was looking back through my journal and found an entry about hope I had written around Christmas. I don't remember writing it, but I'm glad I did.

"I sometimes feel like hope is a luxury for the naive. But hope takes determination, consistency, fortitude and courage... to believe through ALL things that Christ is still on the throne. God, I don't know what this next year will bring for me, but you gave your son so that we might have hope." 

My prayer is that the people of Japan might have an unbroken hope, which descends like a bird who makes it's home among the wreckage... because its wings first carried it high enough to see the sunrise that's coming. 

Step Away from the Doughnut!: And other tales of self destruction

There's an old adage that says, "Wherever you go, there you are." 

"The weight of lies will bring you down," sing Folk rocker's The Avett Brothers, 

"The weight of lies will bring you down, and follow you to every town. Cause nothing happens here that doesn’t happen there. So when you run make sure you run to something and not away from- Cause lies don’t need an aeroplane to chase you anywhere."

What are they saying? In my opinion, each is simply a way of saying you can't run away from your problems. 

Before this year I subscribed to a lie; a lie about the very nature of what I believe and who I am. My great grandmother Eve bought into the same lie, except she turned to apples, whereas I turned to chocolate. 

The lie is powerful. 

It's old too. It began in the garden, and now passes the time lurking around malls and supermarket aisles (particularly the magazine section).


The lie is this: who you are, where you are and what you have been given is not good enough. There's something better than what God has to offer. Unfortunately this lie is easy to believe. After all, we're told it's true a thousand times a day; from magazines to adverts, the media says we aren't good enough and if we ever want to fix that we need to buy more useless stuff. In the bible Peter warns us against this kind of thinking. He cautions, "Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil walks about like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour.” 


If it sounds dark, it's because it is. Im convinced when you aren't sure what you believe about life and about yourself, you can start giving into all sorts of destructive habits.So, recently I began asking my self these questions: What do I believe about myself? About my life? About God? Self help guru Geneen Roth helped me begin to answer that question. "To discover what you really believe," she says, "pay attention to the way you act -- and to what you do when things don't go the way you think they should. Pay attention to what you value. Pay attention to how and on what you spend your time. Your money. And pay attention to the way you eat."

I emphasized EAT, because Geneen Roth was supposedly the first person to make connections between a persons eating habits and their emotions (in her book "When Food is Love"). The quote above was taken from her newest book, "Women, Food and God."


It sounds crazy to look at how you eat to answer those kinds of hard Life questions - but I did. Honestly, for me it makes sense. Ever since my Senior year of high school, I have struggled with weight issues. When I was younger I played so many sports I never had to pay attention to my weight. Then I went to university and things went downhill, fast. First there was the freshmen 15, then I got a bad case of the sophomore 10, and so and so on... The weight gain came as a packaged deal, along with depression and regret. Fully aware of the irony, for so long now I've felt like someone running on a treadmill - no matter how fast I go, or how long I keep up the effort, I go nowhere. My last year at school was the worst. I isolated myself and crippled the present with the past. I felt like because I gained so much, I couldn't (or shouldn't) do the kinds of things 20 year olds like to do. As a result, I fell even deeper into depression - since I felt like I was wasting my youth. I write this in the past tense, keenly aware it affects me in the present. I thought it was possible to leave all these thoughts behind in America, but "wherever you go there you are." 

My flat mate Marie gave me a journal right before Lent. It's a Freedom* journal, with prompts helping identify things that keep you in bondage, emotional and other wise... It begins by asking you what your dreams are, what's stopping you from accomplishing them, etc. Then goes on to list all sorts of negative beliefs about yourself and God, and asks you to circle ones that apply. At one point it starts an open sentence, 

"This makes me realize I might believe..." 

I filled in: 

"I am fundamentally not a good person, and I can never have a new beginning."

After I wrote it, I sat back, shocked at this thing I had just written. Where did I get these ideas about myself? Everything I've ever claimed to believe about God and how He loves us as we are is all true, and yet I put pen to paper and come up with this?

Now I realize exactly where this comes from. It comes from dozens of failed diets. It comes from lingering at mirrors too long. It jumps from the pages of  magazines, and climbs across the living from the TV. You can say it a thousand different ways and it will always mean this: My weight has caused me to believe I am a problem that needs fixing. Let me say this again, me, not the weight, is a problem which needs fixing. And apparently I don't think there's anything I can do about it. 

Have doughnuts really done this to me? A few chocolate binges later and I have lost all hope in life? All defining sense of self? It's the lie. But here's the truth: 

"It's never been true, not anywhere at any time, that the value of a soul, of a human spirit, is dependent on a number on a scale. We are unrepeatable beings of light and space and water who need these physical vehicles to get around. When we start defining ourselves by that which can be measured or weighed, something deep within us rebels."

I should mention I wrote this in my journal before Scotland. If you happened to read the entries afterwards than you'll know I learned something very important on that trip: God does deliver on his promises, and in my last post I realized my life has changed, and that a new beginning is possible. I refuse to believe any longer the number on my scale has the last word about my life. Neither will I believe that junk food is  better than what God has to offer. 

I confess to you I need to change. But not in the way that makes you somehow different from who you are, but brings you back to who you really are. "Change happens when you understand what you want to change so deeply that there is no reason to do anything but act in your own best interest (Geneen Roth)." 

"Let us draw near to God with a sincere 

heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled to cleanse us from a guilty conscience and having our bodies washed with pure water. Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for he who promised is faithful."

-Hebrews 10:22-23