Have you ever been in line at the grocery store and the family behind you doesn’t speak English? Maybe there’s a Honduran family who’s only been in the U.S. for a few months, collecting pine straw behind your house in the Florida heat. Or maybe your local sushi waiter is a Burmese refugee and all you can do is smile and nod when he points out the fish you want to eat this time. Maybe a Palestinian family will show up at your church, grateful to be alive and able to worship God without persecution.
In a world divided by war and poverty, thousands of immigrant workers and their families have fled to the United States to build a better life. Regardless of politics, as Christians we face serious questions about how to respond to the foreigner in our midst. We are in a spiritual crisis in America when Christians walk past immigrants in need because they don’t want to get their hands dirty because it’s an inconvenience. In the context of cartel violence and ICE conflict, as Christians we are called to love the immigrants God has placed in our cities.
Learning a foreign language and making a consistent effort to communicate with its native speakers cultivates godly maturity.
Two different experiences remind me of this, one fictional and one real.
george mcdonald lost princess It beautifully depicts how fine people carry scars on their souls that must be removed. These decent people include Christians, liberals or conservatives, who spout platitudes about justice and compassion but avoid helping their neighbors. Macdonald’s fairy tale is about two girls, Agnes the shepherd and Rosamond the princess. They embark on a difficult inner journey to discover lasting freedom from sin and find salvation.
Agnes was a mild-mannered girl who was the pride and joy of her parents, but when placed in the Wise Woman’s magical realm, she discovered that she had a shadow self within herself that was slowly destroying her through her conceit. Anges’ doppelganger was “an indifferent, ugly, miserable girl who stared at her toes.” She “had an expression of such lewd self-satisfaction that Agnes felt ashamed to look at her. Then the girl began to clap her cheeks, caress her body, examine her fingertips, and nod approvingly.” Gunes felt that no other ape-like creature could exist that was so detestable, but at the same time she was fully aware that she was only doing outside of herself what she had been doing inside since she could remember. [Agnes] It was despicable in her own eyes, and she was surprised that she had never seen the truth about herself before. ”
Like Agnes, we all have a shadow in our hearts that turns us into selfish little beasts. And for some of us, rubbing shoulders with people who are different from us, especially those who don’t speak our native language, reveals forgotten doppelgangers. I’m an ostentatious person who thinks my little world is the best. A spirit that demands of the world always responds to hunger. A spoiled child who begs to be praised and believes that causing trouble is a sin.
As the Christians advanced toward Theosis and climbed the mountain, God’s ladder of ascensionwe know that every situation in our life is there to polish us like a jewel, especially those that inconvenience and irritate us. From this perspective, I suggest that learning a foreign language and making a consistent effort to communicate with its native speakers cultivates godly maturity: humility, grace, and wonder. These are the aspects of love, which, like a well-cut diamond, is the greatest of all virtues.
Two years ago, when I decided I needed an adventure, I learned something about my shadow. It’s not a vacation or just another job near your family’s country home. But it is a radical departure from my daily routine, a path into the unknown. It’s hard to say why this was necessary other than I had a deep curiosity about speaking another language and making friends with people who speak it. So I moved alone to Murcia, Spain, and taught English in a rural public school where I could hear the bleating of sheep outside the classroom windows.
My old apartment was directly below the cathedral tower, where I learned to live to the hourly chimes of church bells. Every week I walked to work across the stone square beneath the white face of the cathedral. The loving gaze of La Virgen María, Bebe Jesús and Los Santos was upon me from their noble heights. But despite exploring Spain’s beauty and wonder through foreign languages and cultures, learning to live alone in Murcia was far from easy.
I think some of us have fantasies about living abroad in Europe. On Instagram, we see airbrushed couples sipping Pinot Noir on the Danube overlooking ivy-covered castles, but that’s what life is like in Europe for Americans, and nothing could be further from the truth. It’s hard to be part of another culture. Learning their language requires humility. If you are a perfectionist, you won’t learn very well because you have to make mistakes to improve. There is no other way. I remember swallowing my pride and communicating in broken Spanish with my colleagues, roommates, and market clerks every day.
To make friends, you have to be vulnerable yourself. You can’t hide and pretend that you’re not a foreigner struggling with the language who needs a friend to help you at the bank or the doctor. I felt like the Guatemalan migrant worker in Florida who was worried that people would judge him for not speaking English, and the Burmese sushi chef who was worried about not finding friends in small-town America. In short, I had to become like a little child again, eager to learn from adults, willing to accept free help, waiting patiently, and trusting in the goodwill of my neighbors in Murcia.
To cite another story I love, I felt like Spenser’s St. George. fairy queenwho I discovered that the entrance to the House of Holiness is through the humility of the porter. It was a place where St. George could heal his physical and emotional wounds. As a pilgrim in Spain, I discovered that the gateway to friendship is the same door. I realized that I am not as independent as I thought I was. Alone I am powerless, but in community I am strong and able to love as I was created to do. Interestingly, when you strip yourself of the comfort of your native language, you learn the sanctity of language, simple conversation, and friendship despite cultural barriers.
In the spring of 2025, I fell ill in Murcia. I wasn’t seriously ill, but I was sick enough that I had to quarantine in my apartment for a week. Stuck thousands of miles away from my family with the flu, my imagination conspired against me. Anxiety consumed my soul, and on the fifth day, a deep loneliness took hold of me.
Interestingly, when you strip yourself of the comfort of your native language, you learn the sanctity of language, simple conversation, and friendship despite cultural barriers.
desert fathers At noon I complained of the devil, and was called. acediaIt troubled them with their ascetic worship in the mountains of Syria, and brought with them the displeasure of trying to purge them of black thoughts. If it was the same demon that visited me in Murcia, I can testify that it has not lost its skills over the past thousand years. Every Christian has encountered or will encounter this devil. John Bunyan called him a giant desperation guarding a dungeon, and Edmund Spenser described him as a sharp-tongued wight whose cunning nearly overthrew St. What I needed in the lonely trenches of my imagination was a mission to free me from myself and bring me into the path of another in need of love. I remember praying to God on the fifth night of my illness. “God, please give me a job. Please bring someone to help me.”
Less than 30 minutes after praying, I heard a knock on the door. It was a small old woman, muttering something to me in Spanish. I held my breath, hoping I could communicate with her. What happened was something I will never forget. The poor ancient woman lived with her nurse, who happened to be away that day. Her sheets had fallen from the drying rack three floors up, so she thought maybe I had them. Realizing that I wasn’t, the old lady allowed me to discreetly ride the elevator to her apartment and happily invited me into her room. She showed me her favorite “Tendero”.1 and her “dulces of the soles”,2 And she told me about her queridos, or hijos and nietos.3. I looked at her little Sarah.4 I held the brown rug and smiled. I told her it was all very nice and she said she was very tired and old but she believed in God.
I left Encarna’s apartment one step closer to heaven. The devil has disappeared. Dios te bendiga!5 I told her. The blessing was mutual. I never saw Encarna again. A few months ago, I heard that a friend of mine had passed away. Although I could not fully understand Encarna’s Spanish, God made me understand the most important thing: love for God and neighbor transcends language.
As I adapted to Spanish, I learned to give myself grace and accept myself even when I made mistakes, so I was able to give Encarna plenty of grace. in lost princessAgnes and Rosamond’s salvation does not happen in one great moment. Instead, the girls have to travel and work hard for it. St. Paul writes: 1 Corinthians 15:1-2 “Moreover, brethren, I declare to you the gospel which I preached to you, which you also have received, and in which you stand. If you hold fast to the word that I preached to you, you will be saved by it, if you did not believe in vain.” In a perfect moment, Princess Rosamond asks the Wise Woman how she could love someone as “ugly, ill-tempered, rude, hateful and despicable” as she is, to which the Wise Woman replies, “I have always seen what you would become…but remember, you have only just begun to become what I saw.” Thanks to the grace of a wise woman, Rosamond was able to cultivate a life of repentance and watch her patience transform into a beautiful girl. The wise woman tested Rosamond’s character again and again, and forgave her each time Rosamond came to her with a repentant heart.
I would like to say that after visiting Encarna I completely conquered my shadow. But I’m no better than little Agnes and Rosamond. I still need a wise woman to scoop me up and take me through the woods to a “wilderness naked like a monk’s shaved crown” to give me yet another lesson in her hut. She still uses Spanish to bring me out of my shadow. I still have so much to learn about this beautiful language and I need to bless so many people through this language for love.
Learning another language not only gives you new words, but also a new way of life. Now that I’m back in America, I’ve acquired unique expressions, language, and cultural knowledge that I didn’t have before, and I’m able to love foreigners more fully. I know that if more American Christians took the time to learn another language and form meaningful connections with immigrants, they would experience God’s greatness a little more clearly, taste God’s mercy, hear and smell God’s love calling out in sublime tones, and yes, smell God’s fragrance in even the smallest acts of kindness done for the smallest of things. Because where there is love and language, the body of Christ is found.
Source: Christ and Pop Culture – christandpopculture.com
