Article
Comment
Digital
6 min read

Letter from a digital nomad

The real gift of the digital tools we now have access to is to make the world both bigger and smaller at the same time, writes Lianne Howard-Dace.

Lianne Howard-Dace

Lianne Howard-Dace is a writer and trainer, with a background in church and community fundraising.

Woman sitting in front of a computer
Photo by Chenspec on Pixabay.

The air in the carriage is still and stifling. I’m sat near the border of Romania and Bulgaria, waiting for the Poliția to return my passport, and I tot up that I’ve spent over 100 hours on trains in the last two months. But, despite my large suitcase and brightly coloured bum-bag, I’m not strictly on holiday. I am – for now at least – a digital nomad. 

Even before Covid-19 hit, the number of people combining work and travel in this way was growing. The increasing openness to remote working which the pandemic catalysed means this has only continued to explode.  

Some countries, like Portugal and Italy, are even trying to incentivise people to work there to aid their economies, or repopulate declining areas. 

Exactly what constitutes being a digital nomad is a little fluid, but essentially it is working remotely, in different places, for a prolonged period of time. You could certainly be a digital nomad moving around your home country, but there is a strong trend of people exploring places where their salary goes further. 

If you’re stuck renting and you work remotely anyway, why not add some adventure to the mix? 

It’s not hard to see why nearly half the people pursuing this lifestyle are in their 30s. Many of us have not been able to “settle down” in the ways we anticipated growing up. If you’re stuck renting and you work remotely anyway, why not add some adventure to the mix?  

Often, this means rocking up to a new city for a month or two, maybe as long as a year. Having bought a three-month interrail pass on a bit of a whim, I’ve taken a slightly different approach. Having already established myself in a new city a couple of years ago, I wasn’t looking to do that over again. But, working on the road is allowing me to scratch the wanderlust itch without eating into my savings. 

Making the most of my all-inclusive travel, I’m spending the week in one city and moving on to another for the weekend. I’ve been blessed to experience some of the best art, culture and food that Europe has to offer. Galleries in Dresden, a piano trio in Venice, and pierogies in Warsaw have been just a few of the highlights.  

I have also had to hold onto my job, of course, and getting used to balancing work and sightseeing was a steep learning curve for the first couple of weeks. My employer has not only allowed, but encouraged, me to make the most of their flexible working policy. This has made keeping the FOMO at bay easier, as I can always take a break to visit a gallery or museum and work into the evening if needed. Taking a late dinner is so much more continental anyway… 

The “digital” bit of being a digital nomad isn’t confined to remote working either. Having the timetable of every train route in Europe, a map of the world and a translator at my fingertips offers more than just convenience. As a woman travelling alone, I feel much safer knowing that the possibility of getting lost and not being able to communicate with anyone is reduced. 

Just as much as the breath-taking scenery and legendary landmarks, it’s been these little moments... which have really made this trip. 

Showing an Austrian man in the laundrette how the camera feature on Google Translate turned the washing machine instructions into English in front of our eyes was a really fun moment. In fact, just as much as the breath-taking scenery and legendary landmarks, it’s been these little moments (you might call them casual magic) which have really made this trip. Like noticing that I’m one of five women on the train to Oslo who are knitting or crocheting, or watching a man in Bratislava cycle across a park with a giant bundle of modelling balloons strapped to his back.  

Some people were surprised I was undertaking such a long trip alone, but it suits me. Compared to the 2021 lockdown - which happened to be my first experience of living alone - this is a doddle.  

I’ve also been helped by the fact that a few friends and family have taken my trip as an excuse for a break, so I’ll have had company for four of the thirteen weeks I’m away. As a bonus, I randomly bumped into a couple I know from London whilst walking over a bridge in Budapest and joined them for an impromptu beer. 

I’ve become very content dining alone. It’s nice to feel comfortable in your own skin like that, and it’s helped me get a lot more reading done as well! There have been other unexpected benefits of moving around so much. Oddly, for someone with hoarding tendencies, I take pride in being a light packer. I’ve really enjoyed the simplicity of living with a smaller amount of stuff and finally understand the power of “a place for everything and everything in its place”. 

In my “normal” life I am terrible for procrastinating with life admin and leaving things until they become stressful. On the road I can’t do that. I have to book the next train or place to stay. I have to tidy up because I need to be out of my room. I’ve learned that I thrive with this blend of structure and change, though I’m yet to figure out how on earth to translate that when I get back. 

I’ve also tried to keep a stricter morning routine than usual. I’ve started most days with a few pages of journaling and the daily reflection on the Pray As You Go app. It’s working well to have that consistent touchpoint, whether I’m waking up in a quirky studio apartment or on a busy sleeper train. 

I’ve visited a lot of cathedrals and churches on this trip, as these are amongst the significant landmarks in many European cities. Sometimes this is a purely touristic experience; if a church is teeming with people chatting and taking selfies I might take in the artistry of the building, but find it harder to connect on a spiritual level. But many times an atmosphere of reverence is maintained. There will be a quiet sense of shared wonder. I’ll find myself slipping into a pew, meditating on the imagery around me, having a little chat with God and generally enjoying being out of the hustle and bustle of the city for a short while.  

On Sundays, I’ve sought out an English-speaking church where possible. Maintaining some of the rhythms and rituals from my everyday life helps me to feel grounded. If I couldn’t listen to podcasts, or write, or crochet I suspect I would feel more disoriented whilst moving about so much. And if I didn’t go to church for the whole three months, I think I would feel out of sorts. Untethered, perhaps. In the twelve years or so I’ve been a Christian, I’ve grown used to that weekly gathering punctuating my week, giving me space to connect to God and others and allowing me time to reflect. 

Joining a service has also given me a different window into some of the cities I’ve visited. I loved hearing that the church in Prague were having their annual book sale, singing with a visiting choir in Berlin and learning about the grant the church in Bucharest have received to support refugees in their city.  

I am part of a worldwide movement... I can learn from others and find kinship wherever I am. 

The American student handing me the order of service, the Indian priest leading the service, the Australian retiree reading the bible passage for the day; they all remind me that I am part of a worldwide movement. That I can learn from others and find kinship wherever I am. And, when it hasn’t worked logistically to attend a local service, I’ve watched one on YouTube from my church back in Brighton. I’ve been able to both find a sense of connection in a new place and stay connected to my home community. Maybe that’s the real gift of the digital tools we now have access to; they make the world both bigger and smaller at the same time. 

Now, I’ve got my passport back and in six hours or so I will be in Sofia, something like city 20 of 27. In a few days I’ll take an overnight train to my furthest destination, Istanbul. I’ll be right on the precipice of where East meets West, having taken in the Alps, the Baltic Sea and the banks of the Danube along the way. Not a bad way to make a living. 

 

Related articles

Article
Comment
Justice
5 min read

Facing up to justice

The crimes and sentencing of baby-murderer Lucy Letby is driving fresh conversations about justice. Edward Smyth examines the confusion and contradictions within them.

Edward Smyth

A writer and speaker in the field of criminal justice and faith, Edward Smyth is now pursuing doctoral research on the 'through-the-gate' experiences of individuals who have found faith while in prison.

A prisoner looks into the camera.
Lucy Letby's Police file photograph.
Cheshire Constabulary.

‘Christians need to be ready for the inevitable moment when Lucy Letby declares that she’s found Jesus in prison.’  

So read one of many tens of thousands of tweets posted on the day Letby was sentenced to spend the rest of her natural life behind bars. I probably saw several hundred of those tweets that day; yet this one has lingered, niggling away at me whenever my mind is drawn back to a consideration of the appalling facts of a case that surely takes its place amongst the worst ever to have been prosecuted in this country.  

One of the things about the Letby trial which has caused the most consternation has been her refusal to appear in court for some of the verdicts, and for her sentencing hearing. The strength and volume of the response to what is being almost universally termed her ‘cowardice’ has some challenging things to say about what contemporary society means – or thinks it means – when it talks of ‘justice’. And, as I write, the Government’s response has been to force criminals to appear. An interrogation of these responses might just help us all begin to be able to think through where this leaves us, too.  

The sense seems to be that in refusing to enter the dock at Manchester Crown Court for her sentencing, Letby has somehow evaded what we might term her ‘just deserts’; and that her victims and their families – and indeed society – have been cheated out of some of the justice to which they feel entitled. If the act of receiving the sentence is viewed as itself part of the punishment (not an assumption by which I am wholly persuaded, but one which sits at the heart of this argument) then the outrage caused by Letby’s avoidance of her sentencing speaks to a certain weighting of the importance of that one morning in court as against the next forty or even fifty years Letby will spend in prison. What this boils down to, then, is retribution pure and simple. We think offenders should be made to listen to the impact of their offending because we want them to feel all the things that we believe they deserve: guilt, shame and pain. We want this because of some innate, deep-rooted sense of balance and fairness which dictates that an appropriate response to the imposition of pain is, in turn, the imposition of pain.  

Our legal system exists, in part, to ensure that this remains proportionate: the state censures offenders to avoid the inevitable disproportionate vigilante or retaliatory action which would otherwise ensue, exercising what some criminologists refer to as its ‘displacement function’. Prisons, of course, are out of sight and usually out of mind which perhaps explains the importance of the sentencing hearing in cases like this: it is the only opportunity we have to see the convicted person suffer – and we need to see it with our own eyes to make sure that, even if we think ‘prison is too good’ (i.e. insufficiently painful), we have at least seen the convicted person suffer some pain. 

Letby may have avoided being deluged by the waters of justice rolling down upon her ... in the dock, but we should be in no doubt that those waters are rising from the floor of her prison cell as we speak.

For Christians, though, the elephant in the room is that Letby has been sentenced to a ‘whole life order’. In passing that sentence the state is saying ‘we have no interest in your rehabilitation’; and that is something which should give all pause for thought especially Christians. I do not think there is a ‘correct Christian response’ to this issue, as it happens: personally, I would rather we didn’t have whole life orders, but equally I have no objection to someone spending the rest of their life in prison if that is the only safe course of action. If we were designing a Christian system of criminal justice, then whole life orders would be indefensible on the grounds that we have no right to make impossible redemption; but we’re not designing – or operating under – a Christian system of criminal justice; and redemption in the theological sense is still possible in prison. I struggle – particularly in light of cases like this one – to get too worked up about it.  

But perhaps that’s the point. Perhaps the fact that my own theology opposes whole life orders but, when exposed to the facts of a case like Letby’s, I find it difficult to care very much is exactly the kind of confusion and contradiction of which I spoke at the outset of this article. And in that confusion and contradiction perhaps we find what it is to be a Christian, our instinctive and culturally conditioned human responses coming up against the teaching of the ultimate countercultural being and, so often, overwhelming it in our hearts.  

Those hearts ache for the victims of Lucy Letby and their families. Have they received justice? She will spend the rest of her life in prison: I think they have. Is that justice compromised because she did not appear for her sentencing? I think it is not, on both secular and Christian grounds. Secularly speaking the state has performed its ‘displacement function’ and the punishment is being carried out whether she was there to hear it or not. The victims have – for better or worse – been removed from the conversation, which is why criminal cases are listed as ‘The King v. ...’ rather than ‘[Victims’ names] v … .’ Theologically speaking Letby may have avoided being deluged by the waters of justice rolling down upon her (as Justice is described in the Bible) in the dock, but we should be in no doubt that those waters are rising from the floor of her prison cell as we speak, and she will be soaked through soon enough. 

The case of Lucy Letby – as with any case of great evil – is a violent challenge.  For the Christian, it is one which can only be met with prayer, thought, and introspection. In short: they must pray their way to their own response. But whilst they are doing that as Christians in an increasingly secular world; a world where the responses that they know their faith obliges them to make are so quickly and easily monstered – I can only hope that they and we find in our Church an institution willing to preach that countercultural, unpopular Gospel.    

'Modern man often anxiously wonders about the solution to the terrible tensions which have built up in the world and which entangle humanity. And if at times he lacks the courage to utter the word “mercy”, or if in his conscience empty of religious content he does not find the equivalent, so much greater is the need for the Church to utter this word, not only in her own name but also in the name of all the men and women of our time.'  
Pope John Paul II 

  

Related articles