Lent, Law School, and Practicing the Presence of God

I gave up watching TV for Lent. When Lent ended today, Easter, the day of victory, the day of celebration and joy, I gleefully partook of what I'd abstained from and finished the last season of HIMYM.

When it was finished (okay, I cried a little), I reflected on where the past two hours had gone, how it was 2am, and it was irresponsible to be up that late, and how deadened two hours of television had made me feel after such a wonderful day.

This, I thought, this is why I gave up TV.

I actually gave up TV in order to better practice the presence of God. I don't often observe Lent, just because self-denial for its own sake seems to me something I can only practice selfishly, for example, slipping into the trap of thinking that watching less TV would make me a better person.

But something curious happened.

On April 12th, three days before the response deadline, I sent in a seat deposit to Penn State. I made my decision. I chose a law school. And I had such peace about it. I looked for apartments as I Skyped with Maggie and we spit-balled about visiting Disney over our spring breaks.

But three days later, on April 15th, on the response deadline, I got an email from Suffolk, my first choice law school, offering me a full-tuition scholarship. (PSU had offered me this to begin with, which I why I had chosen them over Suffolk.) When I saw the email frustration seeped through me. "Why. Why. Why." I chanted to myself as I sat at my desk.

Once I got over my initial angst, I launched into advice-seeking, pro-con list-making, general rationalizing. I emailed PSU to see if I could get my deposit back. No dice.

The whole time I questioned, "Why, Father, would You have this happen this way?" All my life my path has been steered by the gentle channel of closed and open doors. I walk forward in my desires, seeking congruence with His will, and trust Him to halt the plans that aren't His. And this has really worked for me. I'm not one of these people who agonizes of the mystery that is knowing the will of God. His personage has a depth I can't fathom, but it seems His will is very simple: seek Him.

This being my paradigm, I was flummoxed by the sudden appears of two doors. The trust I had previously placed in my decision for PSU faltered as Suffolk again became a possibility. But I was also loathe to change my mind after I had already accepted PSU as my fate. I had waited for weeks for an email from Suffolk with such scholarship news; how stunting for it to come just days after I put the money down.

"What do You want me to do," I would inquire of Him sullenly, frustrated that He would have me question my future beyond the next three months, annoyed that He would tease me with something I had desired for so long. I wanted clarity. I wanted an answer. I wanted handwriting on the wall.

And I don't want to elevate myself to put words in His mouth, but in that moment what it seemed He replied was, "I want your attention."

Lent was not about watching television. The scholarship news from Suffolk was not about my law school decision. The choice has made me batty, but it's not about choosing a school. (Either is perfectly fine!) This is about something much more important.

It's about my heart. It's about increasing the proximity of my heart to His.

And it's funny how understanding this doesn't automatically attune me to Him, just like six weeks without television didn't kill my capacity to stay up late binging on episodes that have already aired. It's funny how easy it is to adopt "Seek Him" as your guiding decision-making paradigm and then you forget to actually like, seek Him.

But He won't relent until He has it all, our whole hearts, our complete attention. And how patient He is, and how creative, how He gives us these slow pitches as He teaches us to keep our eyes on the proverbial ball . . .

The baseball metaphor is dripping with cheese, I know, but I have so much joy that I am loved by a G0d who demands my attention and teaches me to give it to Him. That He says to me, "Daughter, I will not abandon the work I began in you." He lives. He leaves us not to follow Him blindly groping, but He will open our eyes and grab our attention.

Fact: music motivates learning

It sounds silly to write it here in black and white, but one of the wins I have most appreciated about the laborious task of learning Russian is being able to understand the bit from that Regina Spektor song "Apres Moi." Shockingly, I didn't discover the text for this reprise until just now. It's the first stanza from a poem by Boris Pasternak. I'm not saying I can sing along perfectly just yet, but I will hopefully have something to show for these hours of Russian practice. I'm so delighted to have something small and relevant to my home culture to contextualize what I'm learning.

Words are below in Russian Cyrillic script, Russian Latin script, and English.

Февраль. Достать чернил и плакать!
Писать о феврале навзрыд,
Пока грохочащая слякоть
Весною черною горит.

Fevral'. Dostat' chernil i plakat'!
Pisat' o fevrale navzryd,
Poka grokhochashchaya slyakot'
Vesnoyu chernoyu gorit.

February. Get ink, shed tears.
Write of it, sob your heart out, sing,
While torrential slush that roars
Burns in the blackness of the spring.

(Poem and translation accessed from http://www.kulichki.com/poems/Poets/bp/Rus/bp_3.html. Discovered thanks to Hope Johnson.)

Food withdrawals

We went to the grocery store this week and what I saw had me geeking out. 

Lettuce, they had lettuce. And not just the wilted and yellowed cellophane-wrapped heads of romaine that they usually had, but also those plastic sealed boxed of baby spinach, radiccio, and arugula. What?!

We've become to accustomed to not eating lettuce that one glance at the high price was enough motivation to pass it up, but I felt a little thrill in my gut at this sign that spring was coming, and that after spring comes summer, and during summer I'd be able to eat all the lettuce I wanted.

I foresee this being a big problem. Starting to think about the summer and being home, making plans, the big thing that's in my mind is what I'm going to eat. Like honestly, I see myself stepping off the plane in Logan and walking straight to Jamba Juice. 

For example . . . garbanzo beans, sweet potatoes, Ritz crackers, Italian sausage, ravioli, tortellini, kale, brown sugar, panko, shellfish, jam (I mean, they have jam here, but, it's so, how do I explain, it's like a syrupy fruit puree), PEANUT BUTTER, peanut butter M&Ms, pita bread, bagels, fresh fish, deboned chicken thighs, cheese (they have cheese here, but it's expensive, and there's no cheddar), quinoa, squash, couscous, Trader Joe's, canned crushed tomatoes (not positive, but I think they're a thing here), canned pumpkin, blueberries, asparagus, cream cheese . . . usual food items that I have missed so much and can't wait to consume again. 

I can't wait for iced coffee and Del's lemonade and Iggy's clamcakes and chicken on the grill and s'mores and not paying $4 for a cafe americano and Pinkberry and American-Chinese takeout and being able to drink the tap water. The chain restaurants I previously disdained, like Applebee's or Olive Garden, I'm looking forward to those, too. Cooking in generally is going to be so much easier once I'm able to read the labels again. Succumbing to gluttony is one of my biggest fears about coming back to the States because I'm such a sucker for making up for lost time.

This is a double edged sword, though. Whenever I slip into a day dream about all the recipes I'm planning on trying once I'm back stateside, I also remember all the food I won't be able to eat once I'm home.

Khachapuri, manti, beshbarmak, pelmeni, Soviet cookies, meat-stuffed blini (I mean, I guess I could make my own, but, I will miss buying the premade ones in the freezer section), horse sausage, plov, baursaki, samsa, laghman, shashlik (I could also probably make this myself, but I'll miss the smoky smell of it cooking in the bazaar), lipioshka, katleti, all the pirozhki, and the extensive tea selection. Oh man, I only just realized now, sitting and reflecting on it, how much good food we've consumed. Before coming I didn't think Russian food (with all its dill, mayonnaise, and pickles) would agree with my palate, but what did I know? 

I will not miss instant coffee, Russian salads, meat jello, or okroshka.

The bread here is amazing. I feel as though each culture has excellent bread (I don't think I've ever had bread I didn't like any place I've ever gone), but it will be really depressing to grab a processed, presliced loaf of Arnold's when I've been eating fresh baked brown bread for like 20 cents. And the candy, I don't understand why a nation as industrialized and sugar-obsessed as the USA hasn't diversified their candy aisle, because the ones in Kazakhstan really put us to shame. I'm going to miss the candy. And I'm bringing a few kilos home, so start putting in your requests.

There is so much good food to be had in this world. Enjoy your meals.

KARAGANDA TO-DO LIST

Every morning when I wake up and every night when I climb into bed, I feel this strange division bubbling up in my chest. I think of driving down route 116 and eating seafood and watching movies with my sisters, and I can't wait for June to be here. And I think of walking through Central Park and eating pelmeni and walking with our friends, and I dread the coming of June and leaving this place. Living in a foreign country is such an enormous privilege and one I am determined not to squander during my remaining time here. 

These are the things I want to take advantage of before concluding this stint:

• Hit the major cities: Astana, Almaty, Shymkent
• Go to the banya
• Sing karaoke
• Make a real American cheesecake for the office
• Give purpose to the staff at the Karaganda Region Museum
• Go to a football game
• See the view from Bayterek Tower
• Eat beshbarmak
• See the museum dedicated to the Karaganda branch of Stalin's gulag, the Karlag
• Go to a hockey game
• See a dombra concert
• Drink kumis
• Have an entire conversation exclusively in Russian
• Attend mass at the Catholic church
• Spot a wild gerbil
• Ice skating /  Paintball / Rock climbing (not necessarily unique to KZ, but generally new here)
• Visit Timertau and the Nazerbayev Museum there
• Get my picture taken with every monument (there are at least 10)
• See the inside of the Orthodox church
• Hear stories from someone who lived under the former Soviet Union
• Ride a camel
• Catalogue Kazakhstan's vast variety of candy
• Learn how to make borsch

Lest you think my aspirations are too small, here are some honorable mentions of things I accidentally did without intending to make a goal of it.

1. Visit the Kyrgyz Republic.
2. Watch the Hobbit 2 in Russian, and in 3D.
3. Spill hot oil all over our kitchen.
4. Drink unfiltered water from the tap. (Our friend remarked, "You shouldn't do that.")
5. Buy train tickets all by myself. (Myself plus Google Translate.)
6. Lose my phone. And my wallet.
7. Overstay my visa by two months and get stopped trying to leave the country.
8. Watch a Russian serial. (With English subtitles, of course.)
9. Try vodka.
10. Make my student cry. 
11. Eat dog. 
12. Go to the hospital. (For chest x-rays to prove I didn't have TB.)
13. Ride a bus to an unknown location. (This has happened more times than I can count.)
14. Learn how to make crumpets.
15. Ride a Soviet-era ferris wheel.
16. Go to a wedding. (Don't worry, we were invited.)

If you ever find yourself in Karaganda (hey, you never know!) and want to soak up every little thing this area offers, these things might be a good starting point. Not that I necessarily recommend getting lost on public transportation or overstaying your visa, but these (mis)adventures are fun in their own way because they let you see the place in a new way. And nothing makes you feel like a local like falling down on the icy sidewalks does. So embrace the humiliation. It's amusing for everyone else.

It's Who You Know a.k.a. how I started watching hockey

I think before coming to Kazakhstan I'd been to three hockey games. 

One was a Providence Bruins game when we were younger, and we left in the middle.

The other two were during Word of Life's Super Bowl event, a youth rally that involves staying up all night and . . . learning more about J3sus? Not totally sure, but during the hockey portion of the night I was absorbed with watching my fellow students and pretty much didn't even realize there was anything happening on the ice. 

So when we decided to go to a hockey game here in Karaganda I was kind of unenthused. But we were going with students, and it was a cultural experience, and it was something to do on a Saturday night, so, that happened. We learned the team name (Saryarka!) and how to say goal (шайбу!) and we were good to go. And the game was fun and everything, but I didn't feel the need to ever go again. I checked that off the list. I was ready to move on to football.

Polina (second from left) translates for the team

We've now seen four games, three of which have been playoff games, and two of which have been in the best seats, right behind the players' box. We chant the players names and we say dumb things like, "Я люблю тебя, Bова!"* I'm still waking up from confetti in my bed from when they showered the crowd with it after their quarterfinals victory. 

And how did all of this come about? You Rhode Islanders will understand me: connections. It's not what you know (in this case, the hockey schedule, which we didn't know anyway) but who you know (in this case, the team's translator.) Polina has season tickets to the games and all-access pass because she translates for her aunt, who is the team's doctor. The majority of the players are from Russia or Kazakhstan, but for the English speakers on the team, Polina helps them out. Thanks to her, we got to meet Kip Brennan** and Sabahudin Kovačevič.***

Bet, Teka, and I with Kovačevič

The Karaganda team (Сарыарка, which we're told is the name of the oblast where Karaganda is located) is currently in the semifinals and is the only Kazakhstani team. One of my administrators at Daryn tells me that when the hockey stadium first opened no one attended the games and the doctors and teachers in the city were required to go with their families, I suppose to act as trendsetters. (She confided in me that she much preferred American football to hockey, particularly the Oklahoma Sooners, which I chose to ignore because, roll tide!) Last year this team was in the finals, so it makes it that much more fun to root for a team that actually has a shot at winning. 

These hockey games are a language lesson unto themselves: being sandwiched between native fans shouting at the players in their native tongue we're able to spend a few hours in language immersion, which had paid off with a handful of new words and improved listening skills. (For the Canadian players some fans occasionally shout, "Ca-NAH-da, goal!") I like to think my ability to dance in my seat has also improved from the music they play while the clock is stopped.

Second semi-final game, final score 6-3 Saryarka!

I wouldn't say I've become a hockey enthusiast in general, but having Bet explaining the ref calls to me and offering insight into the game's rules has definitely grown my appreciation for the sport. I tend to have low interest in what I don't understand, but as my understanding of hockey grows so does my attention span for it. I actually just googled what was happening currently in the NHL. Look at me caring! As an expat/foreigner/inherent outsider, what I appreciate best about becoming a Сарыарка fan is being part of something. When I ask my students whether they watched the away games on TV, it's nice to see the look of pleasant surprise at my interest. It's a small gesture, but sporting team pride is just another way to show how much I've come to care about this place. 

*Can I tell you how adorable one of the goalkeepers is? After victories he dances to Gangam Style on center ice and brings the stuffed animals people throw on the ice to the orphanage.

**Formerly an NFL player. Click the link and see an example of his hockey skill set. Polina says he seems scary on the ice (he's an enforcer) but when the team visits the orphanage he tells the kids stories about putting out cookies for Santa Claus; an interesting juxtaposition.

***Competed in the 2014 Sochi Olympics as a member of the Slovenia team. 

****Kazakhstan only has two teams in this otherwise Russian league, and Polina explained that when KZ wins they kind of get treated like we treat Canada when they win the Stanley Cup. In many ways Kazakhstan is to Russia as Canada is to the USA. Perspective.

Seeking the lost

It’s been a week of silly screw ups. First I lost the cellphone Bet and I have been sharing, then I’m pretty sure I gave us cancer by cooking our kielbasa with the plastic wrapper still on. In terms of the day-to-day banalities of living, lately I've been struggling. In an effort to remedy the first problem, though, I stopped at the supermarket by our school to inquire after their lost & found. 

“Excuse me,” I said to one of the cashiers, “Do you speak English?”

“Eh? No,” was the reply.

“Alright, do you know if my telephone is here?”

“Eh? No,” she answered.

“Okay, thank you.”

It seemed dumb to give up so easily, especially since I guessed she was blowing me off. My pronunciation is horrendous and understanding me takes some work, work that she’s not being paid to put in, especially when customers appear in her checkout line.

I did a lap around the store to see if I could find anyone looking more official than a stock boy, but no dice. In the corner by the beer counter there were several employee lockers and some binders with records, and I assumed this was as close as store administration as I was going to get. 

“Excuse me!” I tapped one of the security guys on the shoulder. “Do you know if my telephone is here?” I could tell by the look on his face that he couldn’t understand my mangled Russian, so I whipped out my translator and showed him a phrase I hoped said “Lost telephone.”

He looked at it, still uncomprehending, and another security guard came over and joined him, speaking to him rapidly, maybe explaining what I was asking. He turned to me and said . . . something. I recognized one word: go. 

I shook my head. “I’m sorry, I don’t understand Russian. I need to know, my phone here, or not here?”

He shrugged his shoulders and moved to the aid of one of the cashiers who was calling him, saying to me, “No.” The other security guard smiled at me. “English?” he asked. “Yes,” I answered with a sigh and gathered my bags. “Good-bye!” he called after me, and even in my defeat I smiled at his effort. 

Riding home that night on the bus with Bet’s student Rakhat I shared with him my fruitless story. I repeated what I had tried to say to the store employees and asked him if it was correct. “Actually, I think your Russian is okay,” he said. Positively incredulous I asked him, “Why?!” He answered, “Because you know how to ask where is my telephone!”

It truly is the little victories. 

I made a mistake today.

I was at a specialty grocery store, hunting for some peanut butter, when a bottle of coffee-flavoring syrup caught my eye. As I examined the bottle, a fellow shopper smiled at me, speaking quickly in Russian and gesturing towards the shelf. 

"Что?" I asked.

He repeated himself.

"извините," I apologized, "я не могу говорить по-русски." I had already said this several times over the course of the day. I waited for him to shoot me a comprehending smile, nod, and then walk away, as had happened several times over the course of the day.

But then, with no hint of an accent he ask, "You speak English, then?"

I was dumbfounded. "Yes! Of course! What were you saying?"

He reiterated, in English, that he was wondering if the syrup was any good, and asked me where I was from. When I told him the States he said, "Ah, you're a mssnary?"

"Um, I'm a teacher," I clarified, simultaneously vamping and wondering who the heck this guy was. And he asked me a few more questions about peanut butter, learning Russian, and then hit me with an invitation to have coffee or drinks. "Well, I can't right now," I told him, grappling for an excuse, "But that's very kind of you." And THIS is about where I made my mistake. The second I realized he was not just a friendly local chatting with the weird foreigner I should have been clear that . . . well, actually, that what? I wasn't interested in getting to know him? Kinda harsh. That I don't date strangers I meet in the supermarket in foreign countries? I mean, I never consciously made that rule, but it seems reasonable rule to have. 

But this isn't my home culture, and, I'm always so desperate to affirm and avoid letting down complete strangers, and, I screwed up. He told me we could meet whenever would be comfortable for me, and I said okay, and then I took his phone number, and then he called his phone from mine. In what seemed like the very blink of an instant I was past the point of no return. 

"When do you leave?" he asked, just before walking away.

"In June," I told him, feeling relieved, as this answer had worked the last time someone tried to pick me up in the supermarket.

Instead he smiled, "It's plenty of time." 

After all this transpired, I wanted to 1) hide (which I did, over by the soy sauce, where he saw me again and showed me the pastry he had bought for our meeting, which I declined, but he handily shrugged off) and 2) slam my head into something thick and hard. I could scarcely believe 1) that this had even happened, and 2) that I had gone along with and participated in the whole exchange. I think I even smiled.

This experience is just one of many that prove to me that my feelings guide my actions, not my thoughts. If I had been rational about this whole thing when he asked about having coffee I would have said, "Thanks but no thanks." But for whatever reason I didn't feel like I had the power to turn him down. Communicating my discomfort felt impolite. I didn't want to let him down, I wanted to affirm him, so I went along with something that made me uncomfortable to the point that I wrote a check I didn't intend to cash. I never crossed my mind at any point until it was too late to just say, "Sorry, no."

I'm reminded of that time Sarah nearly got engaged on the train to Astana. She spent three and a half hours feeling acutely uncomfortable while I tried to buffer this guy's advances. It was not the most fun train ride for her, but we couldn't ask him to leave or stop, so she bore the discomfort in silence. (Hopefully in retrospect it's loads funnier, though!) Talking about it with Stuart afterward I was struck by his perspective on the whole thing: if you feel uncomfortable, say so. So the guy wanted to come to dinner with us, no big deal; all we had to do was say no. 

It's like, that honestly never occurred to me. 

Lightbulb: You're allowed to shoot people down. You're allowed to reject people. You're allowed to not be interested. Or, I mean, those are all rather harsh ways of thinking about it, but what I mean is, if you don't want to have coffee or drinks with the random guy you meet in the supermarket, you're allowed to say so. Saying "Sure!" when you don't mean it is far worse than a sincere "No thanks." And this is the big mistake I made.

The guy called this evening. I had told Bet my tale of woe so that if he called when she had the phone (we share) she would know not to tell him I'd call him right back. And I told Teka because it was kind of a funny story. But, oh, then he called, and David said I needed to answer and be straight with him and tell him I'm not interested.

(I mean, "not interested" are not the words I would use. "Creeped out" are the words I would use. "Morally opposed" are the words I would use. But I can see how that might but considered an uncharitable way of putting it.)

Instead I just let it ring and ring and ring. If he calls again I'll probably have to answer and tell him I won't be meeting him for coffee (I mean, I fleetingly considered it, banking on the likelihood that after one conversation he'd quickly become disinterested, because I would rather go through with an uncomfortable situation than break the news that I'm not interested) because, I don't know, it's the right thing to do, and the consequence of my mistake. 

So if you're wondering what I'm doing overseas, contributing to stereotypes about how American women are flirts but flakey is just one of many things I have my hand in. Gotta let my mistakes all hang out so that at least others can learn from them. 

Dear young Chr!stian women.

Are you starting to feel funny that you're now of marriageable age and have no prospects in sight? Do you feel like you must be odd because you've never been asked on a date? Are you feeling doubt about your future because the childhood plan of grow-up-and-get-married isn't quite panning out like you had expected? Do you feel like you stand alone, a kind of modern nun, the only girl who is unattached, who must be, maybe, unwanted?

And there's a lot that's been written about seeking Him instead of seeking a him, or on using singleness as preparation, and that stuff's not bad or anything.

And there's a lot that's been written about what's going on with the boys and how their generation needs to step it up, and maybe there's some truth to that. 

But I'm not super concerned with the what or the why. I don't know about the future and if we're looking at a generation of Chr!stian single ladies. I got no advice on any of that. Absolutely none. But let me just tell you, you're not the only one. 

You are one of countless kind, beautiful, smart, funny, mature, and godly young women in the same boat. You are not defective. You are not bizarre. You are not repulsive. You are one of the many girls who love J3sus with an inspiring passion and who are enormously talented with amazing gifts, but who have never honest-to-goodness been wooed. There are many, many, many of similar such Chr!stian single ladies. Droves. Shining paragons of eligibility who have somehow never have had a suitor. 

It's a bizarre phenomenon. 

But let me assure you it is a phenomenon. You're not alone in feeling like this.

If you feel like all of your friends are getting engaged and they're looking at you like you must be so lonely, you're not the only one.

If you watch the birthdays tick by and see your hopes to have family by a certain year get pushed back and pushed back, you're not the only one. 

If you're worried that the gift of singleness is not returnable, exchangeable, or refundable, you're not the only one. 

If you feel directionless or purposeless because you've been waiting to wrap your destiny with someone else, you're not the only one.

If you feel walled in by expectations or assumptions that you must be damaged or dysfunctional because you're single, you're not the only one. 

Lies isolate people, don't they? In isolation people wither. And it tugs at my heart when I see these girls withering, believing they are wallflowers, that they stand alone as the last one picked. Nothing is farther from the truth. Don't let comparison tell you that there must be something wrong with you. Don't let the lies that tell you that you're in some way defective take root in your heart. You're lovely. 

Whether you care that you're single or not, you're lovely. Whether you feel judged by marriage-oriented Chr!stian culture or not, you're lovely. Whether you've been waiting quietly for a life partner or not, you're lovely. 

You're not repellent, maladjusted, or unloveable. And you're not alone. You're lovely. Don't forget it.