Q is Quite

Just a short post for this week’s meme…
My husband and I just returned from Grand Canary Island. The trip was for my husband’s work. He has a meeting twice a year with a group of international attorneys.  The meeting is held in Europe and always at a lovely hotel.  Grand Canary Island is a big resort for Europeans, especially Germans. Honestly, I don’t think the Island is especially beautiful, it is quite rocky and brown but the weather is always warm and often sunny which I guess for Europeans that’s a big draw.

English is the “official” language of this association but when you walk into the room you will hear a mix of Spanish, Italian, German, Polish, and on occasion, a bit of Russian. The English comes in several varieties as well…American, British and Australian.  Everyone in the group speaks several languages…that is everyone except most of the Americans (unfortunately I am included in that last category).  I doubt that any of these people will ever feel the need to spend political energy in a fight to declare an “official” language for their country.   These are folk who move comfortably and frequently across borders and into other cultures.  Many of the locals, “Canarians” as they are called, whose native language is Spanish, easily slip into German as needed (the result of many German tourists coming to the island).  German with a Spanish accent certainly put a smile on my face.

The event is as much for socializing as it is for business. Each evening we attended a cocktail party where good Spanish wine was flowing along with delicious hors d’oeuvres  (or starters as the Brits would say). The time was spent catching up with old friends and meeting new people. With each conversation we would pick up a few words from another language and incorporate those words into our personal lexicon. Es it gut ya? Ya! Il problema con gli adolescenti…ah yes, the problem with teenagers, all the parents in the group had a story or two about this shared experience.  My morning chant was café con leche por favor.

With each conversation the distance between cultures decreased and the world became a little smaller, a little more personal, and a little more hopeful.

This is most assuredly a secular group but the relationships built over the years have opened the door a bit to sharing faith.  More and more we are comfortable saying I will be praying for you. It matters not that we don’t share a theology, what matters is the gratitude that is expressed for the concern, for the prayers. And with this concern, with this gratitude, with these prayers, we each are filled with a little more of the Divine.  Quite remarkable indeed...
off to Haiti next week...quite a different sort of trip...more to follow...