My first year at university in Vancouver was an unhappy time for me, mainly because I had no clear goal for being there. I was there mainly because my parents had sent me to the university closest to my home.
Education was very important to both of them: they would have been heart-broken had I not gone to university. Neither had been given the opportunity - or encouragement - to get a good education.
My father had only basic literacy skills. His childhood education had been interrupted numerous times by war. He used to say that he had a grade 3 education... in three languages.
The farming community he had lived in as a child, on the border of Russia and Poland, had once been part of Germany. In those times of unrest around World War I, different teachers were sent to teach in their one-room country schoolhouse. Some were German, others Polish or Russian. With every new language, they'd have to start all over again! So he learned all three languages, but he didn't get beyond basic literacy in any. After arriving in Canada, at the age of 19, he learned to speak Swedish, Norwegian and English. An inventor and mechanic, he was talented in understanding machines, but held back by his lack of education.
My mother, who arrived in Canada at the age of 9, attended a one-room country school near Edmonton. Gifted in math, she wanted to become a teacher. But it was hard for her to get an education. In those hard economic times, as an older child in a large family, she was expected to work to contribute to the family income. Her one-year of teacher-training was made possible by a loan from family friends, after the money she had saved up, while working for a year as a maid for a wealthy family after high school, was used by her mother to buy family groceries.
Half way through my first year at the UBC in Vancouver, I realized that I couldn't continue to study there. The rain was getting me down - and I had no academic goal. I wanted to become a journalist, but the nearest university that offered that program was San Diego State College in California. I also wanted to travel... And the possibility of studying in Israel had opened up to me. Living overseas was an exciting prospect.
I remember weighing the options: San Diego? Israel? Each move would determine the direction of my life - not only what I would study, but the friends I would meet. My life would end up differently whichever path I chose. My life was like a novel with two possible endings... Which would it be? I remembered agonizing over that choice - and its inevitable impact on my life.
Recently reading St. Benedict's Toolbox, I was told to think of the decisions that have brought me to where I am. Few of us make life choices after hearing God speak from a burning bush, like Moses did, the book suggests. Instead, most of us follow a path of crumbs, like a bird - crumbs like interests, feelings and opportunities that open up to us.
God uses "our bodies, feelings, minds, spirits to show us the right path, not just for big decisions but all the time," the book concludes. I couldn't agree more.
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