It’s all about the small things

Spend any time reading this blog, your impression may be that a Study Abroad semester is three month vacation, with weekly journeys to far-off destinations that inspire wonder and capture the imagination. I haven’t written a lot about the actual work of teaching academic courses here. Recounting my class lectures is decidedly less interesting than pictures of Windsor Castle. The mundane, day-to-day realities of living at 163 Woodstock Road don’t make for good pictures for family and friends, but the truth of it is that a lot of the experience of a Study Abroad semester is happening in those nooks and crannies of everyday life that never make it into a blog post.

Take yesterday, for example. Tara and I began the day by traveling to Gloucester Green to see our son, Theo, off to Heathrow for his flight back to Abilene. Yesterday was also open market day on the Green, so we stocked up on fresh produce, including an eye-catching collection of heirloom tomatoes and heirloom carrots (did you even know there was such a thing? Carrots of all shapes and colors!). Returning home, I spent the afternoon teaching my Introduction to Ethics students about utilitarianism, and my Social Ethics students about Kantian deontology. Satisfied by a successful conclusion to my weekly teaching schedule, I celebrated by walking a half mile down Woodstock Road to the Quirky Barbers, a local Barbershop run by two Syrian immigrants. The shop came highly recommended by some of my students who visited a few weeks ago. The barbers did not disappoint. The conversation we shared over my haircut was perfect: just chatty enough to keep things interesting, but not so chatty as to make the haircut a performative experience demanding serious effort from an introvert like me. Returning back to the flat, I ate a scrumptious vegetarian meal that Tara cooked and then made my way to the commons room to watch Champions League football with some of my students. I ended the day visiting with Reg and Amy Cox, parents of one of my students who are visiting their son in Oxford this week.

Looking back many years from now, I know that some of my memories will be tied to the brushes with world history. The excursions to Lucerne, Paris, and Vienna are fine and good. These grand adventures with family and friends will make memories for a lifetime. But the real stuff of the Study Abroad semester isn’t found in these grand adventures; it is found in the small moments and in the accumulation of mundane experiences that shapes you into to the kind of person you are always in the process of becoming. Spend any time reflecting on the small things and you are bound to discover evidence of those ways that your Study Abroad semester is changing you…

You know now which way to look when crossing a city street, so that “hitch” that used to catch you at every street crossing has disappeared.

You gave that homeless begging man a pound coin when you first saw him, but he stayed there for days, still begging. His presence raises questions for you. Who is this man? How does this community provide for the needs of the most vulnerable? Are they doing this more effectively than we do in the States? Am I helping them man by giving him spare coins, or are there better ways to help homeless beggars in Oxford?

You’ve grown accustomed to walking at least 6 miles a day, and the miles don’t even exhaust you now. Your daily walk down Woodstock Road to City Centre has become a 20 minutes period of meditation for you. It is something you value. You don’t know how you will live without it when you return to the States.

You’ve struck up a casual relationship with a coffee barista at the local Costa. You know him by name, and he knows what you’ll be ordering when you arrive. He brings it to you with a smile at the small table that has become your table.

You have a regularly scheduled time during the week when you like to shop for groceries. Most days you prefer the M & S in Summertown. While the selection may not be as wide as Tesco, it is a lot closer to the house, the prices are good, and you prefer to avoid the crowded streets of City Centre when carrying groceries home.

You’ve decided that while you do like fish and chips, you are not a fan of mushy peas.

You wonder why supermarket strawberries in Abilene don’t taste half as sweet as the strawberries you can buy anywhere in Oxford.

You look forward to Sunday worship at your church home in Oxford. It’s different than your church home in the States, but in a way that is opening up your own sense of God’s graceful presence in places that were once unfamiliar to you. You are able to see these fellow Christians not as strangers but as brothers and sisters.

You walk to the local barber because you are in dire need of a haircut, and for 30 minutes you learn about Syrian immigrants who left a country ravaged by conflict for a new life in the United Kingdom, men who started their own business in 2018, shortly before the start of Covid. You hear these men speaks words of gratitude for a state that provided financial assistance to them when businesses were forced to close during the pandemic. You wonder what it must be like to be a Syrian immigrant in Oxford who has left family in Syria. These family members can’t afford the nearly $30,000 it costs to resettle in the UK. You feel sympathy for these fellow human beings trying to make a good life for themselves in a new country.

The evidence of how much you are changing isn’t found amid the pictures of city towers and UNESCO world heritage sites. It is found in the small things happening around you and to you every day you are here.