A Fulbright Reflection

At this time last year, I was mourning my retreat from Berlin as a Fulbright scholar and preparing to move to Essen, a city where I had had no connections and knew no familiar faces. However, as fate would seem to have it, I have been lucky to once again return to my home here in Berlin. Unreservedly, I am glad that this February does not require the same retreat that the previous year demanded. Instead, I continue to have months ahead to spend with my friends, colleagues, and the children here in Berlin.

A few weeks back, Fulbright had asked me to share a reflection on my Fulbright experience for their online newsletter and to also reflect on what it is like to be back in Germany again. The reflection is now up and published on the web.

For your reading pleasure, I pass along this link:
Integration, from the Other Side

From Trash to Treasure

I have always liked creating things. Whether it be sewing scrap fabric into a bag during a summer school break, knitting a scarf, or scrapbooking photos, I like the sense of creating something new and then continuing to use it to fulfill an already existing need. In an attempt to live simply, this urge to create has gravitated towards a creativity of turning trash to treasure during my time here in Berlin, a shift that has been accompanied by an adventure into new mediums of creation - from the familiar of sewing, knitting and decoupaging, to the somewhat explored photography and to the newer forms of painting and drawing.

As I gathered furniture together for my apartment here in Berlin, rather than buying crates or containers simply to hold 'stuff,' I have become a connoisseur of utilizing that, which would otherwise be thrown to the curb. To hold my knitting, I converted a box that my parents had sent me into a sewing basket. The sewing, knitting and crocheting needles, thread, scissors, paintbrushes inhabit glass jars from various jams and foods that I have eaten in the past five months.

Paper that I want to recycle gets tossed next to my trashcan into another old packing box covered with envelopes and tea bag wrappers.

My prize ‘trash’ creation, however, is my table. Since moving in in September, I have been regularly visiting flea markets in search of the perfect table for my room. A small end table to sit next to my sitting chair upon which to set my current reading pile and a cup of warm tea was all that I wanted. But, I found no table that met my expectations.

Then, however, one of the chairs in our kitchen broke. After bearing the wear of people leaning back into the wooden chair, the wood had split between the chair seat and back. One morning I returned from running to find the outcast chair alone in the hallway of our apartment next to the trash. After waiting one day, I smuggled the chair into my room and took the cracked chair-back, and made the crack final and official by severing the chair back and chair seat. Since then, I have found my perfect table. At a cost of zero, the chair (now turned table) serves all of the desired purposes. And with a bit of yellow paint, it adds a bright and jolliness to my room during these winter months here in Berlin.

Other than making cushion covers for the old chair I pulled out of our apartment storage, my creation of trash treasures may simply subside as my need for such handy creations ceases. However, my interest in sewing, photography, painting and drawing remains high. Perhaps, cards, things to wear and artwork for my room will be what comes to follow.

"And, who are you?"

This was the question posed at the beginning of a sermon given by the Berlin/Brandenburg District Superintendent, Christian Voller-Morgenstern, at a worship service in Kreuzberg earlier this month. You know when you are at holiday parties and people come up and ask you, “And, who are you?”. I had to laugh, as this question, simply in the disguise of another question – “What do you do?” – had plagued my four years in Washington, DC. The question(s) is not necessarily meant to offend, but there also isn’t really a good answer to such a question, particularly in speaking with someone who you are just meeting for the first time.

Where do I start? We are all accustomed to answer with qualifiers, attributes, associations and relational ordering. I am a sister. I am from Rochester, NY. I am a social worker. I am a Christian. I am an American. I am white.

Yes, these answers – what I do, what I look like, what my relationships are, what I believe, and what citizenship I hold – are all components of who I am, but they fail to answer the root question of ‘who I am.’ The question ‘Who are you’ demands a deeper analysis, a deeper answer. Although my identity is on the one side comprised of how I self-identify and the labels to which I self-ascribe, it is also shaped by how I present myself and how others see and perceive me in response. While one attribute of my identity may vary, such as a change in my citizenship, this change in identity does not, in actuality, change who I am. Yes, with a different citizenship, everything would be different, but everything would also be the same. I would still be who I am.

Although race, ethnicity, career, sexual orientation, education level and marital status are all components of one’s identity, none of them alone describe who a person is. I am neither the passport I carry in my pocket nor the work that I do. Yes, these are formative in making me who I am, but they are not the final deciding variable in who I am.

Identity is a topic that seems to pop-up everywhere in my life recently. Sitting with my work colleagues after our Christmas party with the children and youth at the Kindertreff a few weeks ago, we got to talking about identity. Identity comes up frequently in our discussions with the youth at the Kindertreff, as well, because they often find themselves living between or without identity.

As someone who tends to research, analyze, and contemplate the social, class, and racial conditions of those around me, anyways, I find it really interesting to internally reflect on the same issues. I have taken numerous university courses on issues of identity and have found some pretty interesting stuff in my research on issues of identity for migrants, for Muslims, and for those with 'migration background’ here in Germany.

Being abroad, it is interesting to note how predominant one’s citizenship and nationality come to serve as a dominant factor of identity, particularly in answering the question, ‘Who are you?’. I would never describe myself as a typical American. I fulfill almost none of the awaited stereotypes or clichés, much to the disappointment of those whom I meet. Yes, of course, being an American outside of the U.S. already makes me an exception. But, not only do I not eat American fast food, particularly from McDonald’s, I do not drink Starbuck’s coffee, or constantly have a bottle of Coca-Cola within arm’s reach.

To the disappointment of many of the children and youth with whom I work, I do not even watch television, am not up on my Hollywood movies and actresses and actors, and am not best friends with Justin Bieber (which is good, since he is actually from Canada, anyways). I don’t really care about American sports either, and if that doesn’t make me un-American, then I am not sure what does.

However, there are other ‘American’ things that slowly, I realize, have become more important to me, particularly the longer I am away. For example, the progression of American holidays (even the ones I previously considered irrelevant) and the current stand of the American university semester serve as key markers of time and time progression. And American politics remains an important, albeit frustrating, topic that I follow as closely as possible regardless of where I live.

And food. I don’t necessarily eat McDonald’s or a lot of pizza or hamburgers, anyways, and the staple American consummation of peanut butter has been substituted by the superior Turkish hazelnut butter, but I do stand strong on my love of cookies, muffins, and brownies. And, no, I am not sure that October 31^st can come and go without eating some Resse’s Peanut Butter Cups and candy corn, nor that the last Thursday in November can pass without some pumpkin pie or the acceptable equivalent.

But still, even in a foreign country, I cannot answer the question, ‘Who are you?’ with ‘I am an American.’. Who I am is much more complex than that.

During the sermon where this question was addressed, the District Superintendent posed the possibility of answering with, “I am a child of God.” Although we had to laugh a bit, simply considering the reactions that one would receive if one began answering in such a way in today’s secular society, there is some value in such an answer. While other variables of our identity may fluctuate, we remain the same. We remain children of God.

“And, who are you?” “I am a child of God. And so are you.”

O Tannenbaum! O Tannenbaum!

O Christmas Tree!

As a child, and even now, one of the most important Christmas traditions is selecting a Christmas ornament each year. Already with the release of the Hallmark Christmas ornament catalog in August, considering which Christmas ornament we would want to select each year began on the rainy days of family vacation at Keuka Lake. From our first Christmases as babies to this year, my sisters and I have always gotten one or two ornaments each year. When we would decorate our Christmas tree, we would reminiscence, recognizing different stages of our childhood and youth, our development and growth represented in our Christmas ornaments, which we always hung on our family Christmas tree ourselves.

O Christmas Tree!(?)

Not being home for Christmas for the first time ever, the question arose: To buy a Christmas tree or not to buy a Christmas tree? Although I cannot imagine Christmas without a Christmas tree, I knew that I would also likely being spending neither Christmas Eve nor Christmas Day at home. And then came the logical factors of the decision: is it worthwhile to spend so much money on a Christmas tree, which would only stand in my room for close to two weeks? And what of the environmental impact of buying such a tree? So as a result of this deliberation and indecision, I left the dilemma unresolved (since I do not enjoy making decisions on such matters) and in doing so, by default had until the beginning of this week decided, in effect, not to buy a Christmas tree.

Thy leaves are so unchanging;
Not only green when summer's here,
But also when 'tis cold and drear.

On Friday last week at our Christmas party for the children and youth at the Kindertreff, the reality hit me. I would not be home for Christmas. I would not experience the traditions that have become so self-explanatory and which I have taken for granted year after year. I would not be able to see my family. As this realization hit, I accepted that it was okay to be homesick, especially at Christmas. As my friend Miriam Wood shared with me, “being homesick isn't bad - because it just means that you came from somewhere you were loved. So it's ok to be homesick, I think - because you are certainly loved here.”

And yet the tradition, the consistency of a normal Christmas celebration still remained absent. While reading my daily devotional from Dietrich Bonhoeffer this week, one day’s devotional was an excerpt from a letter from Bonhoeffer to his parents during his time in prison:

“The awareness of a spiritual tradition that reaches through the certainties gives one a certain feeling of security in the face of all transitory difficulties. I believe that those who know they possess such reserves of strength do not need to be ashamed even of softer feelings – which in my opinion are still among the better and nobler feelings of humankind – when remembrance of a good and rich past calls them forth. Such feelings will not overwhelm those who hold fast to the values that no one can take from them.”

So. In these reflections on my own homesickness, the need for “remembrance of a good and rich past” and the practical offering of my supervisor to borrow her extra Christmas ornaments, I decided that the unchanging leaves of the Christmas tree that marked each Christmas were needed, especially “when ‘tis cold and drear.”

Much pleasure thou can'st give me;
How often has the Christmas tree
Afforded me the greatest glee!

And so it came to be that I purchased my very first Christmas tree. I went to the small tree market set up close to my district town hall, and not knowing the appropriate etiquette in a German Christmas tree market, simply selected the Christmas tree I wanted and took it to be bound. I carried the Christmas tree home – just like they always do in the Christmas movies when the main characters live in the city. Other than the lack of snow, it was perfect. I had acquired my Christmas tree.

According to German tradition, Christmas trees are put up and decorated on December 24^th. Since I had only purchased mine on the 22^nd and was still working most of the week, I decided that I could wait and observe this tradition. I invited one of my roommates, who flew home this afternoon to celebrate Christmas with her family, to decorate my Christmas tree with me this morning. Of all the Christmas preparations that the previous week had brought, my roommate declared decorating my Christmas tree with me as the highlight of the week; her family’s Christmas tree would already be decorated by the time she arrived home this evening.

Thy candles shine so brightly!
From base to summit, gay and bright,
There's only splendor for the sight.

Clearly, none of the Christmas ornaments hung upon my tree are mine. My new ornament for this year is not hung upon this tree, but the one at home, with my family. The decorations here are neither the ornaments of my childhood nor the ornaments passed down within my family. And yet the Christmas tree is mine. It is decorated with electric candles, and wooden ornaments, like the German Christmas trees that I had only seen in photos. But never in real life. And yet, it fits. It is perfect. And although it is different, it still holds the tradition, the intention, the love, peace, joy and hope that Christmas is and should be.

And so I will close with another tradition. Every year, before going to church on Christmas Eve, we take a family photo in front of our Christmas tree. And this year I won’t be in it. But, here is, at least, a picture in front of my Christmas tree.

How richly God has decked thee!
Thou bidst us true and faithful be,
And trust in God unchangingly.

O Tannenbaum, O Tannenbaum,
Wie treu sind deine Blätter.
Du grünst nicht nur zur Sommerzeit,
Nein auch im Winter wenn es schneit.

O Tannenbaum, O Tannenbaum,
Wie grün sind deine Blätter!

O Tannenbaum, O Tannenbaum,
Du kannst mir sehr gefallen!
Wie oft hat schon zur Winterszeit
Ein Baum von dir mich hoch erfreut!

O Tannenbaum, O Tannenbaum,
Du kannst mir sehr gefallen!

O Tannenbaum, O Tannenbaum,
Dein Kleid will mich was lehren:
Die Hoffnung und Beständigkeit
Gibt Mut und Kraft zu jeder Zeit!
O Tannenbaum, O Tannenbaum,
Dein Kleid will mich was lehren.

A Reflection on German Advent- and Christmastide

An excerpt from my December Newsletter....

Advent in Germany can simply not be equated with the Advent Season in the States. At least not from my own personal experience. In the U.S., Advent sneaks up on us amidst the preparations and celebrations of Thanksgiving and for many, the first Sunday in Advent is lost in recovering from said celebrations, shopping and the beginning of Christmas consume, and the stress of an obligation to bake, decorate, shop, write, and wrap, which, for many people, drives the Advent season. As a university student in the states, the entire first three weeks of Advent were lost amidst the stress and anxiety of writing papers, cramming for exams, and hoping, really, just to make it through to the end of the semester.

In such, Advent became less a season of waiting, and more a season of survival, with the destination of Christmas. Perhaps it is with this ‘End of the semester’-stress fresh in my recent past that I find Advent here this year different. Unique. More intentional and centered.

Without the celebration of Thanksgiving at the end of November, the Germans already anticipate the coming of Advent, rather than having it be masked and consumed by the ‘holiday rush.’ Here in Berlin, one week before the First Sunday of Advent, Advent wreaths, candles, and pine branches surfaced at the flower shops around the city. Beautiful three-dimensional stars were quietly unpacked, constructed and hung above the altars of churches. St. Nicholas chocolates, Stollen, and gingerbread appeared in the aisles of supermarkets. The wooden stands of Christmas markets, Christmas lights, and pine emerged in various forms (some with more kitsch than others) on the streets of the city. Friends, partners, and families worked diligently to handcraft and package a unique and meaningful Advents calendar for loved ones.

And then, exactly four weeks before Christmas, it begins – Advent! With the opening of the first door or package of the Advent calendar, the Christmas markets throughout the city were opened, people were greeted with “Happy First Sunday of Advent!” and the season of ‘coming’ began.

The ‘coming’ is, however, marked less by the stress of all that must be crossed off on the ‘to-do list.’ Instead, the Advent season is an opportunity, a privileged and sacred time to spend together with family and friends. Invitations to bake Christmas cookies or sing carols abound, and frequent are the trips to the infamous German Christmas markets with the intent, yes, to potentially buy a gift for family and friends, but moreso to be warmed by the comfort of friends and a glass of mulled wine, and simply to bask in the Advent joy, the Christmas spirit.

It is this Advent that brings me back to my childhood days in which Advent was really the season of waiting, the season of making homemade hardtack candy after Thanksgiving, the season of baking Christmas cookies with my mother and decorating them with my sisters, the season of unpacking and hanging Christmas ornaments, the season in search of the perfect Christmas tree, and preparing for our annual neighborhood caroling party. It is an Advent season that I partially overlooked and on which I missed out during my years in high school and at the university, and perhaps therefore, one that I now see here through a different perspective. One which I can now embrace in a conscientious way and with a joyful heart. I say that Advent in Germany is different, because it IS. At least for me.

The Joy of Advent and Christmas

Today is December 18th. For some in the United States, apparently a day marked with the celebration of “National Pig Suckling Day.” But for the more average person in both Germany and the U.S., it is the fourth Sunday of Advent. Seven days before Christmas. For many, the last free day off from work to buy Christmas gifts, to decorate, and to bake cookies before Christmas Eve quickly approaches, people prepare to travel to see their family, or prepare for their family members to come and visit them for the holidays.

For this reason, in the midst of the Advent and Christmas bustle, the fact that December 18th is also International Migrants Day is easily overlooked, much as are the migrants themselves who live and work in countries other than their native lands.

This year, in lighting the fourth and final Advent candle – the candle of Joy – might we think of those who have no cause for joy in their lives. As the 11th International Migrants Day leads us into the final week of Advent, might we think of the other, of the person who will be working this Christmas. Of the person who has been collecting their pennies to give her son a piece of chocolate, to give his daughter a small doll. Of the person who lacks proper documentation to travel home to their children or to be reunited with family members who they have not seen in years. Might we remember their legal, political, social and economic rights and their humanity – and their right to celebrate with us this holiday. Might we collectively seek to embrace the Joy of Advent and Christmas.

Michelle, 'our migrant'

One of the reemerging conversations at the People’s Global Action (PGA) was the discussion – who is a migrant?

On Tuesday, last week the United Methodist delegation to the PGA visited the World Council of Churches at the Ecumenical Church Center in Geneva. There, we met with two women working on the issue of migration. Much of their work focuses on attaining a better understanding of migrant churches and the role that migrant churches play in the discussion on Christian Unity. And yet the term ‘migrant church’ would never be self-ascribed by a church community. In German United Methodist church-speak they are ‘international congregations.’ In the United States, ‘multicultural congregations.’ They are, essentially all ‘migrant congregations,’ but a German congregation in Zimbabwe, for example, would never be labeled as such.

But why?

Noone wants to self-ascribe as a ‘migrant.’ The ‘migrant’? They are always the ones without employment, the ones who are un- or undereducated, the ones who speak with an accent, and the ones who look different from ‘us.’ The ‘migrant’ is always the other. But not me.

In all my time in Germany, in Turkey and elsewhere abroad, I have never been labeled nor labeled myself as a ‘migrant.’ Although I am in fact ‘a person that migrates,’ I am not viewed as a migrant, because I have high school and university degrees and hold American citizenship. I belong to the upper social class. And most evident in everyday life, I am white. In Germany, particularly, where I resemble a stereotypical German, I would never be labeled, from my appearance, as a ‘foreigner’ or ‘migrant.’ Even in Turkey, where I was clearly a foreigner, my race, my ethnicity and my nationality posed me neither as the ‘other’ nor as a migrant.

Until yesterday. In the singing of Advent and Christmas songs in any choir, there is an assumption that after singing the same songs year after year, one eventually learns them all by heart. It was in this context, at a church choir rehearsal yesterday evening, when, after listening to the choir sing the first verse of a traditional German Advent song from memory, I interrupted and asked if I might be able to have a book to read the text. The choir director light-heartedly decided that yes, an exception would in fact be made for me. My friend quickly brought me a book, and in handing it to me agreed, yes, “we will make an exception for ‘our migrant.’”

The juxtaposition of these words – the possessive belonging of ‘our’ with the othering of ‘migrant’ – strangely warmed my heart. They could have been offensive, had they not been spoken in a safe space with a joking manner of love. They might have been offensive if I were poor, or unemployed, or a person of color. Instead, after spending the past week discussing migration, I see these words as a sign of hope. A sign of hope that people’s understandings of what it means to be the ‘other,’ the ‘foreigner,’ and the ‘migrant’ might begin to change. Even if initially only jokingly, the usage of such words opens doors for dialogue and discussion. And such dialogues and discussions have the possibility to change hearts and minds. And for that, I am hopeful, particularly as a migrant myself.