Back on my first official day at work I received an email for the entire staff. It informed us that Jack, the Anglican Communion UN Representative, had brought in coffee cake for the office. As a chronic sweet tooth and lover of coffee cake, I trotted off to the kitchen for an afternoon snack. What I found was not coffee cake. It was a cake with frosting...and nuts. No cinnamon-y bread, brunch food goodness. What was this nonsense? A bit later I ran into Jack and his assistant, Chris, and expressed my confusion. I ended up only sharing the confusion as I realized that the U.K. definition actually made more sense. "So coffee cake isn't flavored like coffee?" Jack asked. "Uh...no...Its flavored with cinnamon." I explained. "And it isn't cake?" Chris asked. "No...its more of a bread. But you serve it with coffee!" My attempt to save my definition of coffee cake from utter lunacy failed, to say the least. Thus launched the ever growing list of idiosyncratic difference that plague my existence. On the upside, they also provide easy small talk topics. As much as I try to assimilate, occasionally my vocabulary betrays me. And from time to time, so does my spelling (seriously, what is the point of these extra 'u's and replacing 'z's with 's's?). Then again, spelling was never my strong suit. Joking aside, it makes me think. At least for me, these differences are something of a quirk. My stubborn insistence that my vernacular isn't insane endears me to the people I meet in the UK. At the same time, how much more of a difference in vocabulary would it take before it creates a barrier? Language is something that is essential to cultural understanding and connection. And the distrust of a different tongue is something ancient, even Biblical. It is the product of a fallen world. Genesis relates the story of the Tower of Babel, the tower that the people of the world attempted to build to reach heaven. It also says that God confused their language so they would not understand each other or be able to finish the tower. Their sin was not their initiative as a united people, but the pride that inspired them to compare themselves to God. Pride, the desire to be like God, these are the things that separated God from humankind in the first place. And sin always comes with a cost. According to the story of Babel, the loss of communication, and the difficulty to work together is that cost. London is diverse a city as any, with neighborhoods and burrows entirely dominated by one culture or another. We seek out our own, because we desire to be understood. We desire to be known. But never are we more known than through the love of Christ. For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known. -1 Corinthians 13:12 And if through God we are truly known and loved, then surely through God, we can truly be known and loved by each other as well. It is through God that we care for the stranger, the widow, the hungry, the lost. Accepting the love of God in our lives allows us to love each other, and accept those differences--whether that is a different definition of "coffee cake" or entirely different languages.
All those lovely words aside, there are some things that one should just learn and assimilate to. Just compliment someone in London on their "pants," I dare you.
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9/10/2018 07:24:53 am
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Me: Amelia BrownAvid runner & baker, following God's call to year of mission and service work in the Episcopal Church & Anglican Communion. Archives
August 2018
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