Monthly Archives: September 2014

Vignettes of the Week

Posted in Poland, teaching English by

This week’s days were filled with lesson plans and laughter and music. Conversation and music ricochets around the hard walls and stair well of the school and makes me think that the place is a kind of an alive, breathing organism where we do life and English lessons and love.  There were curved, earnest, little fingers flipping memory cards.  A high five for me from a student who also is  proud of being 40. Endless chatter–and birthday cake– in a class of women who are all buddies.

And best of all, the little crescent moons on a little boy’s face when he closed his eyes to laugh when I asked if he has a snake for a pet. I completely lost my heart to him and his twinkly eyes and can’t wait for a whole year of classes with him and the two other 8 year olds. While teaching children is not my strength, my inner child is really happy with glitter and glue and paint on my fingers. Doing little craft projects while listening to English children’s songs is what I call low-stress language learning, which suits me down to the ground.

Oh yes, and the honesty of the lady who said “I’m not good at anything–this is my complex.” But then she told me how she makes her own almond milk and nutella and she inspired me to try it. And another student, in a lesson about friendship, couldn’t believe how I have a friend I’ve never met, and have Skyped with her only one time. She was so incredulous she dropped her head onto the table. “It’s your personality. You have 1,000 close friends because you’re such an open person.”

I tramped home thinking, I’m so rich, I’m so, so, rich. I have so, so, so many friends that color my world and help make me who I am.

And the week isn’t even finished yet.

 

 

 

A Wonderful Nightmare

Posted in life, Poland, teaching English by

I‘m living in a dream.

I say this to myself many times, probably every day. I live in a non-descript eastern Polish town, just east of Warsaw. I walk to school every day and down the street are bakeries and ice cream kiosks and used clothing stores. Our apartment has hot water and wifi. My English students are charming and vivacious and intelligent and beautiful. There are friends in town whom I can always call or visit and who give me way more than I deserve or could return to them. All around me is tangible, rich culture and history.

Sounds rosy.

It is!

And it isn’t.

The hardest thing in this place is the language. It’s the primary reason I’m leaving at the end of this school year. By then it will have been 5 years of speaking fractured, childish Polish and constantly doubting my understanding anyone. Like last week when I asked the landlord if he remembers about the broken oven part, and he said Lavern will take care of it. But I’d misunderstood him 10 days earlier to say that he’d take care of it himself and we’d been waiting all this time for him. I get things screwed up even in English, and don’t hear what people say,  and it’s 200 times worse in Polish.

It puts me in a cage, and I can function, but not fly. It is a bitter thing.

I keep thinking about the bitter water turning sweet in the old prophet’s day and how the miracle is still true.

How what is rosy and sweet isn’t only that.

And what is bitter isn’t only that.

I’m usually an all-or-nothing person, but I’m learning that most of life is not about either/or, but more both/and.

So this monster of a language has shown me grace like nothing else in my life. It has been both brutal and gentle, like when I croaked out my requests at the village store and  the sweet shop keeper said I say ‘butter’ very nicely. The Polish word for butter is one of the easiest words ever and I chuckled all the way home at how eager he’d been to compliment me.

This bitter cage is sweet because it lets me look deeply into my students eyes and say I know exactly how they feel. I know how scary it is to expose how little I know. I know how it is to understand way more words than I can produce. I know how it is to know a word but not be able to access it in all the folds of my brain. (Who was it who said the greatest sermon is “Me too”?) So I can give them understanding on several levels, and it is sweet, the way they like me and keep coming back.

My anguish becomes something good? It’s hard to admit it–indeed, the admission comes through clenched teeth–but I have to believe it because it’s so obvious. The bitter does become sweet.

This bitterness repeatedly hands me sweetness. In four years, I have never had someone shout or get angry at me for not being able to say what I want in their language. They just wait, or suggest another word, or show by gestures. hmmm, I take that back. There were several women at train ticket desks who obviously think the whole world should be able to speak Polish.

This bitter cage shows me that saying “I don’t know” when asked for a word, or to say a completely wrong word doesn’t stop the universe in its orbit . Nothing–especially failure–is usually as bad as it feels at the moment. But it’s painful. Especially to someone who has been called a walking thesaurus. It’s living with clipped wings instead of soaring.

DSC02727

I took this photo on the train from Warsaw to Berlin, Germany. The hysterical English translation is not unlike some of my mangled Polish sentences.

But this isn’t wasted time, I know. I can’t express myself with words above a child’s level, but I today bumped into an acquaintance on the street and listened to her telling me that she finished her masters degree and is going on Monday for an interview for her doctorate. I congratulated her and said simple, positive, affirmative words and smiled and nodded a lot. She feels heard and cared for, and that’s something sweet, and what most everyone wants most of the time anyhow.

Communication and presence and soul transcend words. This is what helps me survive and even thrive in this town where the average adult can’t speak English. This is what sustains relationships in which I can’t talk above a 6 year old’s level but do experience an ocean of love and the silent language of kinship.

I will always be grateful for living in this place of dreams and nightmares–unutterably grateful. Which proves that sometimes there aren’t adequate words.

Even in an English thesaurus.

What Shape is Love?

Posted in life, recommendations by

 

My personality loves spontaneity and diversity. I like to live large and expansively (not to be confused with expensively!) and strict, sterile routine suffocates me. I need plenty of air to  breathe deeply, and feel stifled in tightly-fitting squares.

However.

Part of living a whole life includes some structure.

There are parts of my day that don’t change. The days are free-form and unpredictable but the beginnings and endings of the days have fixed points that give me stability and rest and predictability.

Coffee is one of those things.

But there’s more. Much more.

Some people call it ‘having devotions.’ I don’t, usually, because it sounds too sterile to me, but for all practical purposes, that’s what it is. It’s my quiet time, the time especially reserved for talking with God. It’s the still point around which everything else whirls. It’s the bread that keeps me alive, the exercise that keeps me healthy, the words that keep me sane.

It’s not all about me, but it’s my initiative, my decision, my deliberately moving into a position to focus and take part in something way, way bigger than me.

I’ve heard many people say they have trouble ‘having their devotions regularly.’ I say this quietly and humbly because I have a lot of trouble with a lot of things, but this particular issue not one of them. I DIE without those fixed points in my days. I get weak and whimpery and grouchy if I don’t keep that structure.

I’m talking about this here, not because I want to talk about me, but to encourage and nudge and facilitate you to find the same kind of sustenance if it’s been alluding you.

There are a ridiculous amount of devotional books out there with laughable titles that could make you cringe. (Don’t get me started!) None of them work for me, but if one does inspire you, or helps you focus, help yourself. What I love, love, love, is this monthly printable of adoration from Sara Hagarty. Every day has a different word to describe and adore God, and the rich words can set the tone for my whole day.

A little  chocolate icing on the cake is Grace Notes, daily readings compiled of Philips Yancey’s books and magazine articles. He’s my favorite contemporary Christian author, and there’s nothing cheesy or schmaltzy about his writing, so reading a page of his words gives me something substantial and dynamic to think about.

I’m not a Bible scholar. Should I be? I read the Bible to live. It’s bread and milk and meat to me. For several years, I’ve read the One Year Bible in the New Living Translation. I love the freshness and variety of daily pieces from both Old and New Testaments, Psalms, and Proverbs. The daily portions aren’t long, and are usually not enough food to feed me completely, but it’s a place to start.

In the evening, before I let myself pick up a book or turn off the light, I pick up my Thanks Journal and write at least one gift in the day.  I’ve blogged about this before here and here but I’ll say it again. Deliberately writing down gifts and reasons to be thankful is the simplest and  most effective way to keep a positive outlook and maintain a life-posture of worship. It’s not magic. It doesn’t help everything. But it helps a great deal.

Relationship with God has similarities to any friendship with a person. Healthy relationship includes seasons of  excitement,  silence, wonder, anger, questions–but always communication in some form. I don’t blog about all the details of my relationship with God because it’s way too intimate to share with many people, but to those who have trouble maintaining communication with the Creator of the Universe, I want to say: do what it takes to fill your part of the friendship.

Your part is to show up.

For my own sake and because I love him, I show up routinely.

He does His part.