Our introduction to the Ignatian spiritual exercises started with an awkward lunch where the other five members of the group were joking about how they would have to be careful not to slip into too-deep dialect lest our spiritual director, a German pastor from Stuttgart, not be able to understand them. For the record, Stuttgart is less than three hours' drive from here and has a dialect that could very easily, to the untrained ear, be mistaken for some version of Swiss German. So then they turned to me and asked, "and where are you from?" Um...
I know we're supposed to imagine the Kingdom of God as a big feast, but aren't meals with strangers so often super uncomfortable?
Luckily for me we had to spend the rest of the weekend in silence.
It was good, and interesting - we heard about the life of St. Ignatius and practiced meditation techniques from the Ignatian tradition and sang - the pastor and at least two of the men in the group had beautiful voices and knew the parts to most of the songs, which made for beautiful interludes. And the location, in the rolling hills of Zug with cowbells, crickets, and traffic noise (depending on which direction the wind was blowing) for company, was very peaceful. The other retreat groups were also being silent. Paradise for introverts.
The meals, though, silently served family-style in our own private dining room, didn't get any less awkward. I felt nervous and different and uncertain. (Here is what I learned this weekend: Swiss people do not put their napkins on their laps. I had never noticed this before. What are the napkins FOR, Swiss people? Are you just so neat that you do not generate crumbs?) And the question that accompanies me everywhere lately was looming large: what the fuck. am I doing?
The best answer I found over the weekend didn't come from the lessons or the mediation or the church services, but from the Lasalle Haus grounds. Right next to the old house there's a huge tree with a plaque in front of it. "Sequoiaendron giganteum." And...this sounds fruity but...she spoke to me. I'm your sister, she said. I was born in California too. I don't belong here. But look, I've taken root and stretched up and I'm the tallest thing around. This place gave me a home, I'm giving it love and security unlike anything native.
She probably has a name, but seeing as I wasn't supposed to be running around asking questions, I named her Maria.
I visited Maria often when we had free time, and contemplated her from various points of view, and tried to capture her in a photo (it never really worked), and wondered a lot how I'd ever get the inner strength to stand tall, here or anywhere. But Maria kept telling me: I did it. You will too.
So there's that.
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