Loving (And liking) in any Language

I’ve been absent from this blog for a long time. There are many reasons for this, but one is that a little over two years ago I took on a new role with my company. One of the great things about an internal move in the same office is that it’s less disruptive to your family, but one of the bad things is that there’s less likely to be a hard and fast stop of one job and then start of the other. There is often a transition period, which in this case meant I was doing both jobs at the same time for about 4 months until my replacement was settled in. It didn’t help that my new role was a consolidation of 3 previously distinct leadership roles, one of which had a team that was previously run well, and two were previously single member teams that were left in disarray.  That first year was rough! Everything was new. I had to make one staffing change (which was really hard to do), and then I had a key resource leave about 6 months in. That undesired change actually worked out really well for us in the end (He is faithful! - and boy did I cling to that during that time), but it took another 6 months to find a replacement. In the meantime I had to beg and borrow from teams within the global organization. It was a crazy time! Since then I think we’ve finally hit our stride. The team is doing great!

One really fun thing about this new gig is that it involves a lot more travel, international travel specifically. I frequently have to travel to London, Munich, and Bermuda. I know. It’s a tough job, but someone’s gotta do it. It really isn’t as glamorous as it sounds though, being in meetings getting grilled by underwriters all day and into the night with long dinners. You have to be “on” for 14+ hours a day while jet lagged. By the end you are “quite knackered”, as our British friends would say. That said, it’s still pretty awesome to visit these places regularly. I mean, there are a LOT worse places to go for business travel. With all this business travel I spend a fair amount of time in airports. You ever notice that people in airports are just not very happy?  Perhaps because it involves copious amounts of everyone’s least favorite activity - waiting. Add to that the complete lack of control over your destiny while being captive to the airline gods, jet lag, disrupted routines, unhealthy food, and you’ve got an airport full of miserable people. I’ll often try to get some steps in while waiting and walk laps around the airport. Walking helps beat so many travel woes, and exercise usually helps keep my crankiness at bay. While walking, when not randomly tripping over my own feet (which I swear only happens in airports), I sometimes try to smile at people to lift their spirits. It’s amazing what a random smile from a stranger can do. I recently binge-streamed (is that a thing?) The Morecast. The Morecast is a newer podcast hosted by my daughter’s father in law and his good friend, Mike, both of whom are pastors in the greater Cincinnati area. I started listening in hopes of getting some more intel on my new son in law, but got hooked by just listening to these guys have conversations about life, and what it means to follow Jesus. In one episode, Like > Love, Mike talks about how our current usage of the term like, in many ways, is stronger than our current usage and understanding of love. He talks about the many ways that we can show someone that we like them and how impactful those small acts of liking someone can be, whether it’s holding the door for someone or smiling. That small thing could completely change someone’s day, maybe even their life.

When I travel to Europe my company lets me travel in business class. Then I’m really special. I get to board first.  I even get to go to the sky club. I historically never have though, because I’m always afraid that I’m going to get spoiled, that or they’ll reject me at the door, because I may have the golden ticket, but I don’t know the secret handshake. Today, because the ticket agent who checked me in specifically told me where the club was, I figured it was safe to check it out. It. Was. Glorious. They scanned my ticket and let me go right in.  They even told me the secret WiFi password. It was quiet, no children running around (sorry). There was food and drinks galore, and even the bathrooms were amazing. They didn’t have those yucky, germy doors on the stalls. No. They were like full European style legit privacy stalls complete with for-real hand soap in a fancy dispenser. It’s going to be hard to go back, because no one likes to feel less than or like a second or even third class citizen, least of all me. I could get used to status…. too used to it.

While I was in the sky club, I overheard the guy in the chairs next to me on a call. He was speaking in a foreign language. At first I thought it was German; then I thought it was maybe French?  Can you tell I really only speak English? And often not well. My boss is not a native English speaker. He was born in Czechoslovakia, raised in the German speaking part of Switzerland, and now lives in the US. He knows like 8 different languages and when he came here 6 years ago, he said that English was not his best, or even his second best language.  Yet, less than 2 years in I handed him a memo and he proceeded to correct my English. That was a bit humbling. The topic of language came up at lunch a few days ago. I got to eat with a friend and mentor who was previously one of my many dotted line bosses. We were talking about international assignments within the group and how challenging it would be to take a position in a country that doesn’t speak English. I think on one hand how I would love that opportunity, but on the other it would be very difficult to not be able to communicate.  Even with language lessons it’s unlikely that I would get to the point where I could clearly articulate everything. I can barely do that in English and I’ve been speaking it for almost 40 years! In my travels, I once got to spend two weeks in Munich. I walked all over that city and took the U-bahn everywhere. I was by myself most of the time and in the office they all graciously spoke English for me. I was able to get by on my own, learning a couple of basic words, but there were some restaurants I was afraid to try or stores I wouldn’t go in because of the language barrier. I think of the people who come here not knowing the language, like my great-grandparents and my amazing choral director in college. I greatly admire anyone who’s taken that leap and left their home to go to another country and learn another language. It’s hard. It’s isolating. My heart breaks when I hear self-professed Christians making comments about immigrants such as “they need to learn English”. I imagine that many want to, but language can be so difficult to master. As the Lord instructed the Israelites to care for the sojourner among them, we should extend some mercy to these folks. Sadly, I admit that when I hit the immigration line at Heathrow Airport and I see a lot of non-English speaking people in front of me, I groan inside because I know the wait is going to be so much worse because of the language barrier. And then I’m ashamed at how I’m feeling and behaving coming from my privileged world where my native language is becoming the global language, and just so happens to be the native language at Heathrow airport in London. I have also been guilty of avoiding talking to people whose English is still rough, just to avoid the long awkward pauses and other such complications that come when two people don’t speak the same language. I even get frustrated trying to translate what my three year old is saying, and she is not patient when I don’t immediately understand her either!  

But love transcends language.  Like transcends language.

I think about when people of all nations, all languages are together in heaven. I wonder what language we’ll speak, or if we’ll all speak the same language.  Or will it be like the day of Pentecost and we’ll all speak our natives languages and still be able to understand each other? I don’t know, but in the meantime, our Lord can help us be more loving, more liking, regardless of our native tongues. What is so beautiful is that despite the great differences in language, our smiles, our laughter, and our tears are part of a universal language that communicates love and like. God may have separated us at Babel, but He tethered all the languages together with this common thread that unites us in His love for all. Let us, in His strength, be more gracious to those we cannot so easily understand.