An American, a Finn and an Iranian walk into a bar … well, maybe not a bar exactly. And this isn’t a joke, either. Just a note that begins with last night’s tennis game with these three friends, myself as the fourth. (It’s a regular Thursday night routine.) I’m English myself, so there we typically are, out on the court; a little United Nations of racquet sports in our Appleton, Wis., club. There, happily, by right of citizenship (one of us), or green card status (the rest of us). What made last night different from the weeks before was, that three of us could still leave the country and expect to be able to return to it in due course – to our homes, our jobs, our nuclear families; to our Thursday night tennis date. And Ellie, for the time being, could not.
Let’s hope this all shakes out, and soon. But thinking about this foursome in terms of nationality rather than shotmaking ability reminded me that I’d met with a Montenegrin that morning. Back at the office, edited an article about a Global Seminar in Argentine. Had a conversation with a Bolivian professor about an Iraqi student that afternoon; an email exchange with the same Iraqi that evening. Add in our little Davis Cup of a tennis league and that’s not a bad international scorecard for a day in northeastern Wisconsin – probably not the first region to come to mind for its cosmopolitanism. But we’re doing better here. And, it helps to work on a college campus that is justly proud of its record in internationalization.
Proud of its reputation for radical hospitality, too; founded by an abbey in a country that claims the same reputation. In monastic terms, such deep-rooted openness translates as the readiness to welcome the stranger in the name of Christ – lest it be Christ himself whom we turn away.
For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, a stranger and you welcomed me. –Matthew 25:35
