April 2025 Vol 7 Issue 4
Tell Your Story Newsletter (TYSN):
Teaching English-as-a-Second Language to Economic Immigrants
Let us help you tell your story
Welcome Mid-April, 2025!
Welcome, Spring and good riddance, Winter!
The past half-week has finally brought Saskatchewanians relief from the burden of another long, prairie winter!
Saskatoon has lately alternated between warm sunshine (on the lovely, vivid
blue water of the South Saskatchewan River); and cloudy skies and grey water
made more inhospitable by cold winds.
But good news! The snow and ice have virtually all melted, songbirds have
returned and we have booted “Ol’ Man Winter” through the “exit” door for
another year! Hurrah!
And we have entered Holy Week in the Christian calendar: in a few short days
Easter will arrive, causing many of us to pause and reflect. Life brings such
challenges to us–economically, geo-politically, in “elected” leadership, in
unethical challenges to truthful voting, communication, trade negotiations and
more.
So in “Article One,” I share reflections of young American theologians, Kate
Bowler and Jeff Chu, who shared a podcast recently on “living deeply” in
difficult times. They refer to a life that involves love, career, hope, grief and
even a compost heap!
Suffering is nearly universal in these times. But Bowler and Chu provide some
insight on the invitation we face to grow in courage from the suffering we
endure, so that we do not fall into despair and drudgery.
And since I continue to work with economic immigrants in my daily work of
teaching English-as-a-Second-Language, “Storytellers’ Corner” this month
presents a subtle but fluid distinction between the verbs “to immigrate” and “to emigrate.”
Whether you observe the Christ’s Resurrection at Easter, another religious day, or spend next weekend as a secular time, I hope you will be among family and friends, good reader, and that these early days of spring bring lightness and hope to your lives.
Sincerely,
Elizabeth Shih
Principal
Storytelling Communications
www.elizabethshih.com
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IN THIS ISSUE:
ARTICLE 1:
On “living deeply”: love, career, hope, grief and a compost heap from theologians Kate Bowler and Jeff Chu
STORYTELLERS’ CORNER:
“GrammarGirl” Mignon Fogarty on the difference between “immigrate” and
“emigrate”
SHOP NEWS
ABOUT US
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Article One: On “living deeply”: love, career, hope, grief and even a compost
heap from theologians Kate Bowler and Jeff Chu
For years, like many Saskatchewanians, I have struggled with the oh-so-long
corridor of late winter that spans from early February through to Easter (this year, on April 20th). The province is inevitably blanketed in severe cold for much of this time, notably by fierce winds and bleak, grey skies. The joys of Christmas have long ago faded, and seasonal depression for many can supplant them.
Many of us fervently plan (and re-plan) our gardens or flower beds, hoping for an early spring. We eagerly seek seed packages and fresh tulips, when they first appear in grocery stores; local farmers and producers dig deeply into seed catalogs, knowing in February that it will be months before they can sow.
“Lent” is, of course, the name given in the Christian calendar to the 40 days
leading up to Easter. For many Christian traditions, it is a time to reflect on one’s life, repent for sins and prepare for Christ’s sacrifice and resurrection at Easter. A valued mentor, Silvia Martini, wrote on social media, on Palm Sunday: Christians “are invited in this Holy Week to grow from our suffering; to grow in courage with grace, humility, kindness and generosity.”
That growth takes much energy and devotion. As American theologian, Duke
Divinity professor and best-selling author, Kate Bowler, writes, Lent is often a
particular time of emotional and spiritual pain: It is “the season where we sit in the heaviness of life. For 40 days, we stop pretending things will suddenly get better and face the truth: life is fragile, and so are we.”
Before you click away from what sounds gloomy, I promise that I won’t turn this newsletter of 14-years into religious proselytizing, or a “self-help” spring
improvement page for busy entrepreneurs!
Bowler reminds us that through the suffering that life can throw our way, we may come to understand what it means to be fully human—and through that find the most encompassing and deepest kind of Love.
Life is full of paradoxes that she calls the “hard parts” of life. These are times that “invite us to stop pretending we can hold it all together and instead sit with the weight of what we carry—the grief, the regrets, the messes we can’t untangle, no matter how much we try.” And we rightly keep on trying.
However, as we have emerged just days ago from the dregs of another late
Canadian winter, I want to visit some of the insights that come from one of
Bowler’s podcast episodes, “Everything Happens” (i.e. a play, of course, on “sh*t happens”). When snow competed with our first crocuses and snowdrops, what did we make of the heavy ordinariness of living Lenten days in SK?
Bowler writes, “Life is this strange, tender mix, isn’t it? Joy and sorrow. Love and loss. Big wins and even bigger failures. We cling tightly to the beautiful moments, but then the phone rings, a diagnosis drops, or some creeping ache reminds us that everything—everything—is so much more fragile than we’d like to admit. Life can be too much,” sometimes.
We all suffer or carry hurts of diverse kinds, while also seeking hope and
belonging for ourselves and those we love. This kind of philosophy or theology was evident in a recent episode of Bowler’s podcast, when she interviewed fellow theologian and friend, Jeff Chu, a gay, married, Chinese-American minister, who left behind a prestigious career in fashion journalism in New York and London to join a “farminary” at Princeton – to become a modest church minister.
Chu speaks of his dramatic career change from journalism to ministry as his
answer to American poet Mary Oliver’s famous question: “Tell me what is it you
plan to do/ with your one wild and precious life?” Chu found his answer in a
seminary class where students went outdoors to dig into a compost heap, which became what Bowler called “an extended metaphor for living deeply.”
Living deeply can mean living on a small scale, and not only a drop in salary. Chu finds “appropriate smallness” in his new career, a modest claim of “who I am, what I can do, and surrender to.” He finds beauty in being “small” at a time when the world operates on grandiosity and noise (e.g. Donald Trump, and his oligarchy). In the “smallness” of a pastor’s life, Chu says, he “gets to be part of love out there that is . . . great and transformative.”
Bowler laughs that Chu carries an electric rice cooker in his suitcase as he criss-crosses the country’s parishes, cooking delectable Chinese meals for his theological friends. He says that meals are part of “small and ordinary graces that create belonging” among others. Here is growth from suffering!
Facing his conservative parents’ rejection of his gay marriage and his non-Asian husband, Chu speaks of the “real grief” of living life apart from his parents, explaining that he still makes what space for them that he can when he’s alone.
Developing a career and life he believes in, apart from his parents’ approval, has been painful. But Chu believes in a “Grace and Love that is greater than any one of us.” He cooks these dinners, for friends who affirm him and his values–and he does this a lot during Lent!
Chu says that digging in compost piles (to grow some of ingredients to facilitate his cooking) is about respect and compassion for others, building love-in-community and making the world better. Our daily lives need not involve “revolution” or impossibly big dreams.
But we also can’t do anything solo, Chu adds. Striking out on one’s
own, as a “hero” in any career, he says, is a “false narrative.” “Instead of chasing
small loves that don’t love us back,” he finds “conviction in a Love that’s bigger-than-us” and encompasses everyone, if we allow it in.
During Holy week and for those of us who are Christian, this “Love” is rooted in a spiritual source, such as Lent and shared meals. For others who are not, “love” may be deeply set in family ties. Which kind of Love allows you to grow courage to cope with suffering?
Kate Bowler says it took years of her youth before her future husband’s family
would recognize her as his serious girlfriend, by writing her nameplate on the
family dinner table in pen, instead of in pencil! She says she struggles daily with shame from many sources and continues to receive uncertain immunotherapy treatment after being diagnosed, as a young mother of 35, with stage-four colon cancer. She’s clearly also no stranger to suffering and writes and speaks (via podcast) on the personal work of grace, kindness, humility and generosity.
Bowler and Chu admire the story of a minister who celebrated her birthday by
sharing tea and cake with local church women. Why? Because that small act of
sharing was rooted in a kind of Love that helped all of the women present to feel known, seen and cared for.
Across the miles, Chu mails Bowler Chinese snacks (“food can be a Love
language,” and “bountiful food reflects hope and possibility,” he says), while she sends him insightful text messages and stories.
Chu says that an all-encompassing Love allows us to grow courage to meet the suffering and hard work of daily life–and with the harsh weather of interminable Saskatchewan winters!
Bowler observes that Chu “chooses to be changed by Love, career, hope, grief and compost, and [a] very, very stubborn belief in God,” that anchor him during often dark days we pass through, during Lent.
She concludes that spiritual “hope looks like compost—it’s slow, surprising,
quietly transforming what was into what could be. So maybe the best we can do is let ourselves be changed by Love, grief, dirt-under-our-fingernails, and by small, ordinarily acts of Grace.”
She continues to her listeners: “May [each of] you remember your smallness is not insignificance, . . . “that Love is fundamentally expressed” in friends’ gifts of food, “in text messages, and places at the table: it’s all still Love.”
This is a practice that we can keep during and beyond the 40 days of the Lenten calendar—long after winter’s lateness is eclipsed by spring’s possibility.
The hope, belonging and growth that most of us seek may be best grounded in
spiritual Love, as well as in the most generous bonds of family and friendship that we can make, in and for each other.
And now it’s your turn: Do you observe Lent or another time of emotional and
spiritual meditation, at spring-time?
And how do you grow in courage from the suffering you’ve experienced?
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STORYTELLERS’ CORNER . . .
STORYTELLERS’ CORNER: Words, Stories, Riddles and Jokes on Writing
and Editing . . .
This month: The subtle difference between the verbs, “to immigrate” and “to
emigrate”
Most writers and communications specialists think we’ve mastered the rules
distinguishing between the verbs “to immigrate” and “to emigrate.” “To immigrate” refers to going into a new country to live (note the matching vowels, as cues), while “to emigrate” refers to exiting a country to go live someplace else.
So one can “immigrate to” or “emigrate from.” But not “immigrate from” or
“emigrate to.”
Easy peasy, right?
Well, not so fast! In a recent podcast, Grammar Girl (Mignon Fogarty) says the
terms “immigrate” and “emigrate” do not refer to different sets of people
undertaking different activities.
The distinction between terms has been muddied in many “declaration of
intention” papers of the 19th century in New York State and in congressional
records from the late 1970s (to name only a few places), where people are said to emigrate to one place from another.
One of Fogarty’s contributing freelance writers, Brenda Thomas, writes that
“most, if not all, dictionaries say that an immigrant is a person who enters into a country to reside elsewhere. But that does not mean that immigrants and emigrants are two different types of people who undertake two different activities. Emigrants who leave one place and settle in another are also immigrants. Or, to say it another way, immigrants who settle in a new country are also emigrants of the country they left.”
The online Merriam-Webster Dictionary shows that the words have been used
interchangeably in the past, are used with “overlapping prepositions” and that “the borders between these words are somewhat porous.”
Fogarty suggests that while these words’ spelling and meaning differ, it is “not
something to be dogmatic about.” She concludes that “even though [the words] have different meanings, they refer to the same person and event, which is a person who moved from one country to another to take up residence.”
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SHOP NEWS:
While pink tulips, blue hydrangeas, chocolate rabbits and Easter eggs may boost our spirits these days, I’m aware that recent weeks have weighed heavily on friends and colleagues, whom I think of in this issue.
Some are facing cancer diagnoses, cancer treatment, medical errors, extended waits for test results and treatment, the premature passing of family members . . . and on and on life can sometimes go.
Each of you is on my mind and will be part of my Easter observations, this year.
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I’m particularly grateful this month to William Wang, CEO of Indigenous
International Trading Group of Canada (IITGC), for corresponding with me and
sharing his contacts and clients, as I seek new students for my English language classes. William’s talent, work ethic and unwavering commitment to serving the communities of SK, AB and his birthplace, China, are inspiring!
Thank you, good friend, for promoting my teaching services among your clients. I’m so grateful for your support.
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I continue to benefit from conversations with Monica Kreuger, Chair of the Board of Luther Care Communities, Chief Visionary Officer of the Praxis School of Entrepreneurship and of other entrepreneurial ventures from her offices in Craik, as well as in Saskatoon.
I’m always grateful for consultations on strategy, opportunities for collaboration, and of the gift of generous friendship, too.
Thank you, as ever, Monica.
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Thank you to small business lawyer, Ben Nussbaum, for moments of insights
shared even on the busiest of days.
You remain a guiding light for entrepreneurial ventures and processes, for which I’m grateful.
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Thank you to colleagues at Pro-Tax Consultants, for their prudent and timely
preparation of income tax, over many years, including answering of many tax-related questions.
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To the staff of my family member’s long-term care home, where compassion and kindness make most days more bearable for residents.
Other factors include delicious and varied meals, pet therapy, daily activities that engage seniors’ minds (while parking wheelchairs before large television screens for hours is elsewhere the “norm”).
For this care I am especially grateful: thank you!
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Thank you to Coordinator, Maggie Li, of Luther Care Intermediate Care Home,
who assisted me in finding a great home for excess senior supplies, after a family member moved into long-term care.
Thank you for your kind support, Maggie!
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Hearty CONGRATULATIONS to my friend Dani VanDriel, who recently retired
from facilitating the purchase of “Action Battery” by EastPenn Canada.
We’re past due for several ice cream cones, now that spring has come . . . .
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Similarly, CONGRATULATIONS to Michael and Jackie Robin, local
communication experts who have also retired from their day-jobs, and stay
mentally and physically active, sharing values and adventures on LinkedIn and
Instagram. Somehow the stars must align for all of us to meet, also assisted by copious amounts of locally made (haskap?) ice cream . . .
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And “thank you” to you, good reader, for your interest in this issue of “Tell Your
Story Newsletter” and in the stories and ideas it shares, some 14 years after I
started it . . . . Happy Easter and Happy Spring!
May this season bring peace and fulfillment, wherever it takes you, near or far.
See you again in Mid-May!
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ABOUT US:
Between 2011 and December 2018, Elizabeth Shih Communications chronicled the stories of B2B marketing and communications on the Prairies and across the country.
Effective January 1, 2019, I rebranded as “Storytelling Communications.” I now
help economic immigrants to get better jobs or secure larger contracts, by
improving their language skills. I help newcomers move “from surviving to
thriving.”
Interested in learning more? Please contact me through my CASL-compliant
website (www.elizabethshih.com).
After I receive your message, I’ll be pleased to talk further with you!
Please visit my website for more information: www.storytellingcommunications.ca).
See you again, in mid-May!
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