The Scoop on Studying Abroad

by Elaina Mohr

“Everything is green. How is everything so green?”. You’d think my first question posed abroad in Northern Ireland would be a little more… intelligent. But the beauty of a semester abroad is that you will ask small questions and big questions, some with answers, some without. The depth of your learning will be immense, and all because you asked why the grass is so green.

An exchange begins with a lot of prep work. If you’re not someone who thinks very far ahead like me, here’s my advice: start now! The hours of research and applications is all worth it in the end. I arrived in Northern Ireland a little frazzled and found myself on a university campus in the middle of cow fields, but you learn to make where-ever you are ‘home’. Not 10 minutes away sat the end of Northern Ireland. The Northern Irish coast never ceased to take my breath away. Rugged mountains with grassy tops met an endlessly brooding ocean which filled me with a childlike wonder every time I explored more.

The other international students became like my family. We were all in the same boat, discovering things for the first time. Each of us also had so much to offer from our own cultures and experiences. My friend from Greece taught me how to “relax” and sip my coffee slowly instead of chugging it in 10 minutes. My friend from Austria taught me how her world travels have showed her how to care for the environment. My flatmate from Tahiti taught me about abounding hospitality and attempted to teach me to dance.

Although my newfound “family” was wonderful, I could have lived in my international student bubble forever and never gotten to know any locals. My advice for future exchange students: get involved somehow! For me, it was joining the Christian Union on campus. I made some amazing friends who took me on adventures to their favourite spots, had me over to cook dinner, and convinced me to join the rugby team (I never made it on the field).

School, right, that exists too. It takes some time to learn a new set of expectations. The best decision I made was to be like a kid and ask every single question I had. My professors now come up as recommended contacts every time I write a new email, but I got my answers! Strike a balance between school and adventure, but in my opinion, *adults close your ears*, always err on the side of adventure.

Oh, of course! The most important part, the answer to my question! How is everything so green? The simple part: it rains all the time. Duh. But do you want to know what else I learned? The Irish know how to expect the unexpected. It might be raining when you wake up, sunny while you eat breakfast, and hailing when you step out the door. Farmers’ fields are planted expecting the unexpected. Trees push up towards the sunlight expecting the unexpected. Strangers look out for each other in case someone expects the expected. And a nation continues to strive for peace over deep divides, knowing there are unexpected times ahead. I didn’t think my time abroad would end so abruptly but I’m grateful, nonetheless. I know why the grass is so green.

Yours truly,

Elaina Wee Mohr

the day gravity turned off - Kate Bradley

The day gravity turned off

Up was down

And down was up and up and up 

And sideways was still sideways 

But all turned around,

If you were inside you lived.

If you were outside you didn't.

Unless of course

You grabbed on to something 

Unless of course 

That something went up with you. 

And then up became down again

But you had just been down up 

So when up became down again

You had a long way to fall. 

And up down you went

So far to the ground 

Which had just been the sky 

And the landing was rough

Because down up went on for a long enough time 

That nothing was tall enough to grab on to. 

And on up-down day 

As we took to calling it 

Those of us inside 

Just sat on the ceiling. 

My ceiling was dusty

My friend cleaned her chandelier

My mom squished a spider in the corner

There wasn't much else to do

Ceilings aren't meant to entertain. 

We had no idea that down up was so dangerous 

We just knew

That up was suddenly down 

And down was up 

And sideways was still sideways but all turned around.

And that sad was happy. 

And we were all so happy that day. 

That's when we knew something was wrong. 

It wasn't the fact that the couch

Was upside down above the floor

Or that the books from the bookshelves

Were spilling their stories across the ceiling

It was that everyone was happy 

And strangely so

In this up-down world

Where sad was happy

And up was down 

And sideways was still sideways but all turned around.

Grad Reflection from Lorena

Graduating right now is kind of wack. It isn’t quite hitting yet that this is the end of university. These past four years have gone by more quickly than any other period in my life. Some things are still the same — I’m still fairly cynical, enthusiastic about the things I choose to get involved in, I really love to learn and to have silly times with friends. On the other hand, I’ve definitely changed a lot. I’ve also done some cool things while at university, like living in France and donning in my final term.

Without knowing, you might assume that my favourite year of university was my third year, where I was travelling, posting cool photos, and gaining all of this “cultural experience”. However, when I look back at my time at university, my second year is the one that sticks out. Lately, I’ve been wondering why — I lived at home and the commute was exhausting, I worked two jobs and had four volunteer positions, and my courses were a significant jump in difficulty from those I had taken in first year.

I think my second year was great because of the busyness. This isn’t to say that being busy is always a good thing — I think our society places too much value on busyness as a measure of success, while in reality value doesn’t come from how much someone is doing. For me, though, that busyness was good because I was intentional about each and every thing I was involved in. Whether that was playing basketball with my conversation partner, planning Grebelwear with the other Special Projects reps, working with the advising team at St. Jerome’s (I know, call me a traitor, but it was great), or working on reading skills with some kids in grade two, each volunteer endeavour I participated in was something I cared about deeply. I began to create community in my everyday life instead of waiting for someone else to do it.

One final highlight that came out of that year and has come to define my time at university is hymn sing. In first year, I remember Anna Kuepfer organized one hymn sing in the first week of school. It was a really cool moment, but it wasn’t yet a consistent event. When I decided to associate in my second year, that was something I wanted to be consistent at Grebel, and Katrina Steckle, Mykayla Turner, and I were able to make it happen in second year. Running hymn sings was a really neat way to connect with different people and to work to create space that hadn’t been there before. That ritual became an important feature in my second year and something I missed deeply while I was away.

The day I came back from France, I came home for a quick shower and then was picked up and whisked off to hymn sing, mere hours after landing in Canada. Despite not knowing half the people there, there was a really neat atmosphere that I was re-welcomed into — it’s very humbling to be welcomed into a space you helped to create. It seems fitting that the last event I participated in at Grebel was a Sunday night hymn sing. Building connections that way was a special part of how I experienced my undergrad, and its odd consistency has shaped my understanding of community. As I move on from Waterloo, the memory of hymn sings is something that is going to stick. Not because we’re the best combination of singers, or because we chose the best hymns, but because we were able to create something brand new, welcome people into it, and through that, create a space of comfort and hope that continues to be important even as those who were there at the beginning move on. While I know my classroom knowledge has been significant, I think the most important thing I’ve learned in university is how to care deeply about others, to choose not to care about what other people think, and how to live in a way that creates space for others to grow.

Covid Does Not Have the Last Word!!

This year, the first day of spring (March 19) snuck in just as our covidization was ramping up.  And being engrossed by the concerns of our changing circumstances, I only found out about it later thanks, to Ron Thiessen.  Ron, Lorie and Amy (Ron and Lorie’s daughter) run Thiessen Farms a CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) farm in Jordan Station.  They’re friends of mine from church youth group days.    Ron shared his ‘First Day of Spring’ experience on his blog. His thoughts set me on a path of hope.  In sharing some of them with you, I hope they do something like that for you.

1. Hope has a colour (yellow apparently) and arrives when and where we least expect it. Ron writes:

“Today was a good day – the first day of spring!

I also discovered the first flowers – a gift and a celebration of the changing seasons!

Tiny winter aconites were found blooming in the leaves & mulch underneath the redbud tree, right close to the road. I was checking the progress of the tulips & daffodils, and there they were – so small, yet so yellow and bright and beautiful and cheerful.”

2. Hope looks kind of pregnant. Of the many signs of spring Ron noticed about the farm – the tulips and daffodils, the garlic coming up under the straw mulch – the one I like best is the emerging rhubarb – it seems to be bursting with life and promise. I would say those rhubarb buds look pregnant with hope. Rhubarb pie – mmmm!

Ron writes:

“While these are days of change, uncertainty, and fear in our world, it is comforting to realize that nature with its turning seasons continues as usual, which for me brings comfort & reassurance.”

3. Hope is a contented cat. At a time like this we might all benefit from the perspectives of other species (assuming they have them). Cats seem particularly good at this. Ron closes his ‘first day of spring’ thoughts with these words:

“As usual, the Flynns remain unaffected by our concerns.

A soft bed in a warm greenhouse on a sunny day – life is good!!”

I believe that the last word is actually hope, well faith and love are pretty important too – certainly not Covid!  Ron’s words and pictures had the great effect of pulling me out of my fixation on our pitiful circumstances and reminded me that the world keeps turning, life persists and love is strong.  

So, how do we make sure Covid doesn’t get the last word?  When life turns abnormal, it takes us a long time to learn the patterns of the new abnormal – and just as we get it figured out, it shifts again.  Our tried and true habits don’t give us predictable results.  So that means: let go of what’s always worked, look for the unlikely surprise.  That’s where hope lives.  It’s more work, a little less predictable.  But what you find is a little flower by the side of the road beaming beyond its size, a rhubarb bud bursting   the frozen earth and a contented cat.  And, who doesn’t smile at a contented cat?  If the cats can do it, maybe we can too.  (And I’m not really a cat person either.) 

Until we gather again,

Ed

My Thesis, or, how video games interpret the Bible.

By Colin Friesen

As long as I can remember, I played video games. An early influence came from my cousin, who always seemed to have the latest and greatest in Nintendo games and consoles. Video games were still important to me, but most of the authority figures in my life considered it a childish pastime I would eventually grow out of. To the dismay of some, I didn’t stop playing. In fact, I became more dedicated as I grew older.

I’ve also been a practicing Christian (of the Mennonite persuasion) for as long as I can remember. In 2014, I graduated from Columbia Bible College with a degree in Biblical Studies with a Teaching Emphasis. I yearned to learn and teach the Bible in academic settings. When my wife and I moved to Waterloo to begin my Masters in Theology at Conrad Grebel, I knew that I wanted to tailor my program for higher academic studies. This meant a thesis, a one hundred page year-long project that represented my original research. I had no idea what I was going to do.

After six months of trying to decide, I strolled into the office of my department head. I sat down to have a frank conversation about the crazy idea I had come up with. You see, there’s a video game called The Binding of Isaac. The title was exactly the same as the traditional Jewish title of the harrowing story in Genesis 22 that most Christians know as Abraham’s attempted sacrifice of Isaac. I suggested to my supervisor that my thesis could be about how this video game is actually an interpretation of the biblical story through the video game medium. To my surprise, the department thought it was a great idea. Soon afterward, my research began.

In Biblical Studies, the dominant methodology used by many scholars is “historical criticism.” This method attempts to recreate the original context of the period the text was written in. It’s argued by those scholars that this is the closest we can get to determine what the author meant when they wrote it. That’s what I spent most of my undergrad doing. That’s not at all what I’m doing now.

My thesis research uses a methodology called “reception theory” or “reader-response theory” as it’s used in some fields. If we consider reading the Bible a conversation between writer and reader, then historical criticism favours the writer, and reception theory supports the reader. I’m not necessarily concerned about what the original audience believed, or what the author meant when they wrote it. Instead, I’m interested in how Genesis 22 was interpreted by different people over time. In doing so, I plan to compare Christian and Jewish interpretations with the game’s reading of the text and see what interesting patterns or insights develop.

If you asked me what my biggest take away from this project is, it was this: After surveying critical interpretations over two thousand years of Jewish and Christian traditions, I’ve learned that there has never really been a straightforward reading of the text. Every time a new person approaches the text, they inevitably bring themselves into it, and it appears to change. Different eras, particular theological perspectives, and historical events all have a massive impact on what people come to believe.

I never thought it possible to bridge the gap between video games and biblical studies. When I pitched it to my department, I thought it would get politely rejected. I never thought that my favourite past time could become a part of my spiritual formation. In the same way that video games had taught me to value play even in adulthood, this way of studying scripture was also helping me play with the Bible too. I’ve never been more excited about the potential this brings to my career than I have been studying for this project.

Liturgy for Grebelites in Times of Quarantine

Our community, who art in social isolation, hallowed be thy tables.

Thy Grebel come, thy work be done,

online as it is in Grebel.

Give us this day our commie sup bread and forgive us our trespasses,

as we forgive those who trespass against quarantine.

And lead us not within 6 feet of each other,

but deliver us some friends.

For thine is the Mary, and the Ed, and the Pam.

For ever and ever and

unto unprecedented times. Amen.

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More to come soon…stay tuned 🤫