Of course, I must explain that the friendships I will speak of differ very much from American friendships. There is no immediately warm openness, displays of friendly affection, or displays of a desire to become good friends, as I commonly found when being introduced to people in America or befriending people in America (at least in the Midwest). There is an American openness to the other that is just not present in Austrians. This is especially noticeable when befriending Austrian children, and it is not simply a misunderstanding of shyness at first spending time with a stranger. The first time we spent the evening with Crist and the children, I was playing with the oldest, Klara. She was trying to help me learn German, and then, very frustrated with my inability to make the unique <ch> throat sound commonly found in Deutsch, she said I must go in the other room and have her mother teach me German before we can play together. She lead me out into the other room with her mother, explained the situation, and then returned to what she was doing. It was very matter of fact. So I went to play with the younger children in the other room for the rest of the time we spent there. Upon leaving, Klara approached me and handed me a little present, a picture of a princess and a peanut. She didn't smile, give me a hug, or talk to me at all. She just handed it to me and walked away. This little encounter was very cute and very telling of the personality I have found prevalent in every Austrian we have met and befriended thus far. {I must say, I do not think I am explaining this very well, for it is very difficult to explain this complex trait of Austrians without experiencing it for yourself...but it is something both Alina and I have talked about and agreed upon, and it is a very important aspect to understanding the Austrian people, so I will keep trying to explain.}
Austrians are very brusque. There is a distance, a withholding, an apprehension. In everyone I have met thus far, from Crista and Klara, to WeWe (a friend of Monika's), and even Monika herself, there is a common trend...they do not pretend. And this is very blatant to a foreigner for at least the first three times you spend time with someone. Austrians do not pretend to know you, or like you, or to be a very good friend from the first moment you meet. They act with a blunt honesty that is not rude, but just in accordance with reality...and maybe a little protective of themselves. The reality is that you do not actually know one another after meeting once, or twice; you do not know the other person's background, likes and desires, motives, etc. A true friendship--the trust it is built upon--grows with time. Austrians understand this and act accordingly, whereas I think I can say that Americans, at least in my experience, tend to pretend as if you can trust the other person and open yourself up to the other person on the initial meeting and work on the true friendship from there. To me, an overly loving, open, and expressive American, I am used to being immediately open and desiring of a genuine friendship with people...almost like first pretending you are close friends so that you can quickly build up the friendship to that level, or quickly find that a friendship is not meant to exist. {I hope this is making sense...if not...just skip this!} For Austrians, they do not pretend and do not exert themselves to be open and loving from the first meeting. They do not smile to make the person more comfortable, they do not laugh if they do not understand or if what you are saying just isnt funny to them. You shake hands when you meet or leave (only when you know someone very well do you do the European double kiss thing, and you definitely do not hug Austrians). So there is no pretending or exaggeration or dramatics of openness and affection. And this is very foreign to me!
But in living this way, life is simple. No grand gestures are needed. From the slightest crack of a smile when you tell a story about something funny that happened to you in America, to a picture and a peanut given to you upon your departure (although not accompanied by the slightest smile), are the biggest gifts because they are so sincere...and they show that progress is being made. Patience is needed. Even the third time we visited Crista and the kids to play for several hours, the kids didn't show particular excitement that we were there. Klara didn't run up to me when I left and give me a hug and say goodbye although we had spent five hours together. She approached me, shook my hand, and stepped back next to her mother. To others, this hand shake, or even the first picture she made me may be just another picture from a child...not a big deal...but to me it meant the world. The littlest things are the greatest.
Reflecting on this, I think it provides a little light into the meaning of Christmas. The Lord Almighty came to Earth as a poor child on a lonely, cold night in a stable...a small thing that was the beginning of our salvation. Yes, the Austrians are distant and formal and closed at first, but truly they are more open than me because very but they open is genuine...and never a fake openness in order to ease the first meetings. The slightest crack is miles deep...it is not about breadth or quantity, but depth and authenticity.
Making the 30 minute walk to mass one day, Alina and I were discussing this very aspect of the Austrian personality. It was interesting to hear Alina echoing all the things I had noticed and thought about the Austrians (they are initially so closed and you really have to be constant in your friendship in order to get to know them even the slightest bit, and they do not show their affection). Her experience of life and relationships in Italy is much like my own American experience--immediate openness and affection. Entering mass with this on my mind, I reflected on what this means for our mission.
When you are so in tune with reality, not pretending or exaggerating at all, when you are closed and distant at first, the only thing that opens you wider is time and presence. Crista, Klara, Monika, and WeWe, and other people we have met will only open up the more we get to know one another. So we must keep spending time with them. Our friendship will not be instantaneous; it will be the fruit of consistent time and presence to one another. As missionaries with Heart's Home (Offenes Herz in Deutsch), we come to Vienna poor and lonely in order to become friends with the poor and lonely; what we have to give cannot be given instantaneously. It is not a bandage, a quick fix of some problem, or a physical gift that completely changes a life and heals all wounds, fixes all problems. All we have to give is our presence, repeatedly, full of availability, love and opennes, so as to build a relationship. To wait patiently for the others openness, but not to force or expect. Crista need frienship--not money to pay for a babysitter so that she can rest, not a psychologist to unload her problems to once a week. She needs a frienship that remains, that stays to help live through the little daily difficulties and tries to alleviate some of the burden by no longer leaving it for her to carry alone. Crist is the mother of four children, living in a cramped apartment that never seems to be clean or organized. Right now, when he is not working in the hospital, Anton is building a loft in the kid's room so that they can fit four beds in the same room. While he is in the middle of this project, all six of them sleep in the same room, and the living room is the play room, the office, and the dining room. You can imagine the stress of this life in which everything is in disarray, even if they still thank God that they have food to eat, a house to sleep in, the conveniences of a Western life. But we cannot change Crista's life, take away her stress, give her friendship with other women. But we can be with her in her life and help her clean, organize, watch the kids so that she can get things done, provide some friendship and companionship with adults instead of spending all day and night with children who always need something. Our friendship is simple and poor. The third time we visited her, she made us a beautiful lunch because she didn't want us to have to leave and go back to our apartment to eat.
Our lives here in Vienna, our friendships with Austrians...they are simple. Not very different from friendships we would have in Italy and in America. Offenes Herz is simple because human need is simple. It is presence. How did Christ change the world? God didn't save the world distantly from Heaven or instantly fix everything. He was born as a small child, <God with us>. He was a child in the world who needed to be cared for and raised by His earthly family. He spent 30 years of His life just living, not performing miracles or showing outwardly His divinity for all to see. He spent 30 years living simply an anonymous and poor life. He changed the world by being with. What a wonderful time of the year to start this Offenes Herz in Wien, in a season based on this one important fact--God came to be with us. How are we to live as Him to one another? Go. Be. Love. That is our mission. Love came to the world as a presence. We will bring Him, Love, in our presence--not as we expect to or plan to or already know how to, but as the need is presented to us at every new moment, as God shows us and guides us to. This is why our mission is a Catholic mission, rooted in prayer. We must pray for the grace of a deeper conversion of our hearts and minds to God everyday. Adrienne von Speyr speaks of the relationship between the pregnant virgin Mary and the God-man developing in her womb. <it is a living circulation of give-and-take. She gives him what he needs and receives in overabundance what He gives her; what is received, however, does not have its boundaries in her but retains the quality of prodigality, the most original of Christian characteristics. Every received gift is designated in her to be given further.> Daily we must focus on living in prayer, living in a relationship with Christ that is modeled after Mary's pregnancy with Christ. We must incessantly pray for the grace to always be carrying Christ within us, as well as for the grace to constantly be living this circulation of give and take--we offer our hearts, our bodies, our lives for Him to dwell within, and through His life within us He gives us gifts, blessings, graces in overabundance to do whatever He asks of us. He gives us His love most of all. And all these things He bestows on us are not for us to keep for ourselves, they are not to be restrained by boundaries. It is particularly these graces that we must share with others...it is particularly this love of Christ that we share with others through our presence and time. The friendship and love between us and Christ that we seek to cultivate in our daily prayer lives is to be extended to our friends in Vienna, to share with them this experience of divine love.
Offenes Herz is unexpected. It is not building houses, evangelizing blatantly, helping stop the spread of disease or bringing medical supplies to underpriviledged areas of the world. People always ask what I am doing for mission work and it is difficult for me to explain (at least succinctly) because it is not a <to do list> but a way of life. We do not build houses, and yet we are helping to build or reconstruct homes, communities and families by bringing broken pieces together, or refortifying the walls of love and community. We do not hand out Bibles or stand on the streed and preach to passersby, but we hope to convert hearts to the love of Christ, because it is only this love that drives us to seek friendship in Wien, and it is only this love that we have first been given and commanded to give further. We do not cure diseases of the body, or bandage physical wounds, but hopefully we help to cure or treat someone's painful loneliness, isolation, fatigue, anxiety because we apply the balm of Christ's compassion and friendship through our presence.
{december 16}
Thus far, our experiences of friendship are new and unfamiliar and unexpected. Our missionary life is completely unexpected, departing from the normal so much so that sometimes when I stop and think about my day, or my past week, I wonder what exactly I am doing here, and why God has called me here. But God has done just that, brought Alina and I here to Wien, during Advent, to teach us about the unexpected. In Christ's birth into a poor, anonymous virgin in a stable, in His being adored by His family, shepherds, animals, and a few kings while He lay in a feeding trough for animals, God radically departed from human expectations and became present to man in a new and different way. Here, Alina and I are, living in Wien, with our hopes high for changing peoples lives through our presence and through our love. Yet, it has been more the case that the people we have met have been changing our lives in return, opening us up to the mysteries God desires to reveal to us, to the ways He wants to stretch our understanding, stretch our hearts.
It is lovely if a person wants to give to God all that he has. But at the beginning of a Christian mission, it must be clear that the All of a human is no standard for God's All and that therefore the first, creaturely All needs an expansion through grace in order to be able to receive the All of God's mission. And this More must be expressly included in the person's surrender. - Adrienne von Speyr (Handmaid of the Lord: Motherhood)
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