After a thirty years' absence, I had the privilege of returning to Vienna for eleven days in July. The winding streets of Vienna and the winding corridors of the Vienna International Center, where I used to work, have long inhabited my dreams. Speaking the sometimes gutteral, always truncated version of German with the occasional Austrian has felt like a secret handshake shared among friends. Such joy to inhabit those streets and those distorted vowels again in real time, en masse. Words fail when describing the sensation of being at home in a place so far away, separated by years and miles of ocean and a continent of mountains and fields. The smell of the fiakas (horse-drawn carriages), the indescribable essence of Viennese coffee, and the sweet vineyards of the Wachau...the hollow sound of footsteps on cobblestone, brass bands echoing from church courtyards, and the lilt of the Viennese dialect of German...the sight of stately Lady Justice--newly gilded above Parliament, the giant movie screen affixed to Rathaus showing films into the night, and the radiant yellow of acre upon acre of sunflowers...the cool, stale air of a burial crypt and the breeze along the Danube are only a small fraction of memories reignited or newly created. Austria has modernized and diversified over the decades, but the people remain gracious and friendly. To dream and pray in a language not one's own has the potential to create an expansive link to God. When we all gather around the throne--"all peoples, tongues, and nations"--there will be a celebration like none other. No dictionaries needed, no interpreters--just the language of praise. |