This semester I have been living in Lupeni, Romania with a bunch of Americans (and I guess also Romanians). I have learned so much this semester about many different things, but also about my national identity of being Canadian. Now, most of the year I spend with Americans anyway since I go to school in the States. My best friends and fiancee are American and I have nothing against Americans. They are part of my family.
So, since there are only seven of us from NWC here our group is often referred to as "the Americans", both by Romanian people here and by our group. At times this semester this has really bothered me. Now don't get me wrong, I do not want special attention or want to be singled out as the only Canadian. I just do not want my identity to be clumped in with the majority because it is easiest. There are a few other terms that our group has at times used, such as students from Northwestern or North Americans. When these terms are used I do for some reason feel happy because an effort is made to include all of us.
This question of identity is something that I have wrestled with throughout my years at NWC being a Christian Canadian living almost permanently outside of Canada,as my faith has developed and I have also gained a better sense of being Canadian. So then, what part of me is Canadian and what part is Christian?
Most of the time I like to think that who I truly am is just a Christian – an identity that contains life now and in the future, and that should be bigger than all other terms. Yet when talking about their faith, it is not enough for people to say that they are just Christian. Almost everyone has to clarify further by saying that I am Reformed, Baptist, Catholic … It is like the name “Christian” has been tarnished and is not enough. When one claims an identity it is hoped that that identity is mostly understood, and hopefully respected. We all want to be recognized as what we claim to be. When people ask me what my faith is I just say “Christian,” but by the further questions that follow it seems that this term is not understood or enough.
I am also a Canadian. I realize that this is just a temporary title as this life will end and I will move onto the next still bearing the title of a follower/Christian. However, my identity as a Canadian has been very important to me. I think that it is because when I think of Canada I think of home and the people I know there. There are things about being “Canadian” that I do appreciate and value, such as the value of peace and the welfare of all, the value of maintaining different cultures, and that to be Canadian is to be an immigrant. I like the history of the country and the peaceful way that independence was gained, which to much of the world (especially the U.S.) is unknown.
So what is my identity? I do not fully know. I know that I am Matthew Andrew Gray and I am a Christian while also having the national heritage of being Canadian. My faith and identity as a Christian gives me a purpose for living and shapes what I want my outlook on life to be in light of what it is not due to the fact that I am human (nationality doesn’t matter here). I have inherited the history of Canada by my birth and the history of Christianity by choice outside of nationality. My greater identity as a Christian affects the way I live my life as a human being with the added title of a Canadian. Yet, there is something in me that makes me extremely thankful to have the title of a Canadian and not that of another nation, like the U.S., because of the added identity “components” that go with being a Canadian.
Canada is the dominant culture I knew growing up and the Christian culture I have received has come out of the room made by the culture in Canada. I like being Christian and I like being Canadian, but when it comes down to the wire and I think about what gives me a purpose in this life in the places I have been and will go, my national identity does not matter – it is my faith. Therefore, being here in Romania my nationality is Canadian, and it will stay Canadian, and so will my identity as a Christian.
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