AGNES MARTINKO Greeting wisdom abroad

The German Alps are not only majestically beautiful but home to interesting villages whose residents carry on colorful traditions and customs.
At Oberammergau, a Passion play is produced every 10 years dating from the Middle Ages, when the town was saved from the scourge of the Black Death. The preparation and production of the play involves all the residents. The spectators sit under an enclosure, but the stage is open to the elements. The day I saw the play, nature played its role perfectly and on cue. The sky was blue during most of the eight-hour production until the time of the crucifixion, when a storm developed, complete with thunder and lightning. Oberammergau is also the center for woodcarving and where shops with religious articles line the streets.
Sites to behold
Garmisch-Partenkirchn is a popular ski resort nestled under the towering Zugspitz, Germany's tallest mountain. Three of its largest hotels were used by U.S. military personnel for rest and recreation purposes during the time of the occupation after World War II. The exteriors of many buildings are painted with scenes from Grimm's fairy tales.
Berchtesgarten, near the Austrian border, has a salt mine open for tourists. Visitors are given protective clothing to wear, complete with a leather apron worn to cover your backside as you slide down three long slides to reach the bottom of the mine. This village is also the site of Hitler's summer home, The Eagle's Nest, perched on the side of a mountain. It is accessible by taking a narrow road partially up the mountain to a parking lot and then using an elevator that was built within the mountain.
Throughout this region, men and boys wear lederhosen or leather shorts with decorated suspenders in summer and loden coats with feathered hats in winter. Female clerks in the shops and waitresses frequently wear colorful dirndls.
Festivals and parades occur throughout the year. The most unique for this region is the decoration of the cows with flowers and wreaths when they are brought down from the summer pastures high on the mountain to the valleys below.
I visited these towns along with ornate baroque churches and mad King Ludwig's castles during my first week in Germany. A teacher and I arrived at our school assignment early and the principal told us that this was the year of the Passion play and that we shouldn't miss it. So we boarded a train the next day for Oberammergau. At our pension we met an army colonel and his family who offered to take us sightseeing with them.
Thoughtful sayings
This was my first trip overseas, and experiencing all of this within one week after my arrival was almost too much to absorb. Apart from all the wonders that I saw, the most memorable aspect was hearing the expression, "Gruss Gott" constantly. It is a shortened version of "I greet the God within you." No one passes you on the street without uttering it. Open a door to a shop, and you hear it. I don't know how the tradition started or whether people are consciously aware of the significance of what they are saying. It could be as routine as our, "How are you?" without even waiting for a response.
It was not routine for me, and I often thought about its meaning. Our "How are you?" relates to our physical condition, while a "Gruss Gott" reminds us that we are body and soul and that the soul is the most essential aspect of our being, continuing eternally after our physical death.
Similarly, I later encountered Buddhist monks in the Far East who greeted me with "Namaste" while placing their palms together and bowing. The definition of Namaste is, "The light within me recognizes, honors and bows to the light within you, and together we are one with this light."
These experiences made me reflect on how we greet one another in our home communities. Friends are generally greeted warmly, but strangers are mostly ignored, and eye contact often avoided. I tried to imagine what our streets, malls or airport terminals would be like if choruses of "Gruss Gott" or "Namaste" filled the air. Would there be greater personal and global harmony if we were continually reminded of our spiritual essence? "Gruss Gott."
XAgnes Martinko is a member of St. Edward Parish.