Riding along

Some towns seem easier to find conversation in than others.  Nashua was a good place.  Benches all along the main street invited people to 'sit a spell' - and we did.  Sometimes I started a conversation, sometimes someone else did. 
 
Manchester seems to group all the benches in the park areas.  Someone commented to me: "If they put in benches, people might sit on them!"  I went to the parks, but couldn't bring myself to wake those who were curled up, jacket pulled over their heads, catching a nap.  And there weren't too many others around.  No one just 'sitting a spell.'   The lunch cafe was bustling, but everyone was in such a hurry.  
 
So I got on the bus.
 
You've got to understand - that was foreign territory to me.   I've always been a 'car owner' and public transportation has not even been a viable option in most of the places I've ever lived.  At least, I don't think it was a viable option.  But who knows?  I never really tried, either.
 
I looked all around the bus stops, looking for maps or directions or routes.  What do you do to ride the bus?  I had a particular destination - the Mall of New Hampshire.  I wanted to pick up a light jacket as some evenings had gotten cool for all my shortsleeve stuff. 
 
I walked to the downtown bus hub, and still couldn't find a map or list of routes.  But there was a phone number on the signs - - so I called it.  On hold for quite a while, but then was very nicely told that I could get a route map from any stopped bus.  There was one right in front of me.
 
I ran over to the bus, climbed on and asked.  And discovered that it was even the bus I wanted.  $1.  Exact change only.  I settled into a seat. 
 
We wound our way through town, through parts of town that I had been warned about not walking through.  People got on and off.  The bus driver climbed down at one point and helped a woman with her bag, as she struggled with the stairs climbing into the bus.  She settled into a seat right up front.  I wondered how far she needed to carry that bag when she finally got off the bus. 
 
I wasn't alone in being a stranger to the public transportation.  Most of the people I spoke with later, who go to the larger Episcopal church in town, didn't know how to use the public transportation either.  They admitted, with genuine sadness tinged maybe even with a bit of shame, that there is a bit of prejudice or snobbery or whatever you want to call it - - those "other" people used the buses.   I know that in much larger cities there are many who don't own cars and that public transportation of one kind or another is part of the fabric of life that crosses all kinds of social boundaries.  But in our smaller cities, that doesn't seem to be the case, yet.

Many of those on the bus spoke other languages. A fascinating thing I learned about Manchester was that it is such an 'international' place. I went to the Millyard Museum to learn some of the city history, and learned that the entire history of Manchester is filled with people coming from other countries. In 1970 there was about 30% of the population that were either born in another country, or their parents were born in another country. It was a glimpse of New Hampshire that I hadn't had before (with most of my New Hampshire experience being up north).

I didn't have 'conversations' on the bus, but I found it an eye-opening experience as everyday people got on and off, in neighborhoods where they sought to create 'home' and speaking languages that connected them with 'home' in a different way than mine does. I take English for granted. I take it for granted that I understand what is being said around me.

I struggle with our 'church' language sometimes. It is such a comfort to hear the language and know that I am 'home'. But I am more and more aware of how foreign that language is to so many. How it speaks of being in a foreign land, so to speak, to those who don't understand what we say.

How do we love and live into our language, without it being a barrier to those who don't know it? Narthex. Eucharist. Rite I or Rite II. Service Music. Sanctus. Sacristy. Sexton. "Open your Bibles to . . . " The confusing array of books in the pews in front of a person. The music everyone else seems to know, but you don't, and you don't know where to find it (happened to me even this last week). All these things can make someone know or feel that they are the foreigner.

How badly do you need something to live in a foreign land? To learn a new language?

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Most of this was written yesterday, while sitting in Goffstown, but there was 'maintenance' being done on the Blogger site and I couldn't post it then. Trying again this morning, while I sit at the laundromat and wait for my clothes to finish.